An instant classic

2023-11-20

Dear friend,

“You can get bitter, or you can get better,” Patti Pusey said to me last Saturday.

If I had been reading a slogan in the home decor aisle at HomeGoods, I might dismiss those words as nice but unearned. Coming from Patti, I’m listening closely. Not just because the noise in the packed Halifax school gym on Saturday had drawn us in tight. Patti always seems to get right up to my face when we talk.

When Patti’s right hand is pressing down on my shoulder, everything else moves to the background. The crowd gathered for Selectman Lewis Sumner’s retirement party, and even the autumnal centerpieces, faded away. 

I’m Patti’s State Rep, a “Dem” being lectured to by an outspoken voter who put the other guy’s lawn sign out last November. But I don’t feel on guard. Patti’s a mother of seven, grandmother of many more, wife to Bill (who’s recovering well from heart surgery), bed-and-breakfast owner and operator, and many other things besides, including being the longtime Town Meeting Moderator whose motto was “talk with respect” and who had to ask Bill to walk it off during one heated debate.

With Patti’s gaze intent on mine, I felt like a man under the wing of an angel.

“We all have hard things happen,” she was emphasizing. “You make the choice of ‘How do you respond?’”

Patti and I were comparing interpretations of Luke 12:48: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

These days, the Book of Luke has been contrasting in my mind with the Book of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Back in 2019, I felt energized by seeing “Captain Marvel.” I wanted to be pilot Carole Danvers, whose transformation upon discovering her unbridled strength was phantasmagoric to behold inside the Latchis Theatre.

Stepping out onto the gray Brattleboro sidewalk, I felt jarred from a dream. I looked for any sign that Vermont held a magical alien device like the one from the movie. What was it, a “tesseract”? 

And that’s just the problem. There’s always some kind of serum or glowing orb that turns the regular person into a “superhero.”

Given this context, I’ve had it with Marvel’s unofficial slogan, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

That’s the wisdom passed from Uncle Ben to the young Peter Parker, an orphan boy turned into legend after being bitten by a mutant spider. When Spiderman veers off-track, neglecting or misusing his spider-like talents, Uncle Ben’s advice reminds him to help others.

For a while, Uncle Ben’s advice felt warm-and-fuzzy But it turned out to be just as superficial. In Spiderman, we’re idolizing a kid who stumbles upon “great power,” and only then grapples with his sense of responsibility.

Not surprising given their lack of character development, these superheroes tend to struggle with a sense of direction. They only rise to the occasion when faced with a villain whose evilness is often paired with traits like perseverance in the face of adversity, self-improvement and long-term planning.

What do stories like this do to our collective sense of responsibility over time?

I don’t fault Uncle Ben for the meaning of his famous quote. It’s just that if I could write a Spiderman movie, Uncle Ben’s reminders would manifest in every character. Every person, no matter how humble their circumstances, would be reminded of how they too have great power. 

The kind of thing I’d work into the screenplay would be a scene like the one that played out for me in eleventh-grade theater class. I don’t remember a shred of that class except one day when I was sitting on the stage with the other students during a break. There was a loose scrap of paper on the stage.

I don’t know why, but I picked it up and crumpled it. I squeezed it into a small ball, then ejected it onto the floor. I watched it roll under the first row of seats.

Did I feel bad about littering? Did I feel bad about not picking something up? 

I’m not sure. I had a lot of privilege in the eleventh grade. This scene takes place in a classroom at Andover, the wealthy boarding school I attended. Maybe I was becoming a creature not of the talents that brought me there, but the privileges. Was I becoming someone too important to care about who would sweep the floor? Maybe I was angry. Maybe for good reasons. Maybe there was something in me saying, “Why should I give a crap?”

I don’t know. A moment later, everything would different. All I have now is the memory of looking at that wayward paper and disowning it.

Ready to get back to class, I looked up.

As I did, I met the eyes of my teacher, a thirty-something “Uncle Ben” type. He looked at me, and in his gaze I could tell he had watched me throw the paper on the floor.

That was all he had to say.

The movie would build with scenes like this, watching kids of all ages find their inner power by claiming responsibility for one small thing at a time. By the climax, the world would be a little tidier, and everyone would know they mattered more than they realized. We fade out to a dance number set to Marc Anthony’s “Vivir Mi Vida.”

That’s a movie I would pay to see.

What about Spiderman himself? In my movie, he tries to help with his special powers but he keeps jumping in the middle of things, stickying them up.

Gesturing with the same hands he used to lift Brittany Pusey off the school bus when he was a custodian, former Halifax Selectboard Chair Lewis Sumner speaks at his recent retirement party.

This is the point in my movie when Lewis Sumner makes a cameo as one more Uncle Ben.

Down and out, Spidey walks around Halifax. And there he sees Lewis, who took the job as the school custodian in 1988 after selling his dairy herd.

It’s morning, and we’re watching from Peter Parker’s perspective as Lewis helps open up the school for the day. Hearing the school bus pull up, Lewis walks out to the curb like it’s clockwork. One by one we watch all the kids get off. There’s a pause, and we can see there’s still one student on board.

Lewis climbs on, says “Good morning” to the bus driver. The camera stays outside as we wonder, “Why’s the custodian getting on the bus?”

A minute later, Lewis walks off, carrying young Brittany Pusey. He’s doing so after unlatching her parachute harness that parents Patti and Bill used to secure Britt in her seat on the bus. Brittany has limited motor skills due to cerebral palsy. She uses a wheelchair at home and a wheelchair in the classroom, but, as Patti explained to all of us at Lewis’s party, the school didn’t have someone they wanted to task with getting Brittany off the bus every day, and then back on at 3 p.m.

That’s when real-life Lewis Sumner stepped forward to be there for Britt at the bus stop.

Classic Lewis Sumner. He wielded great responsibility in the Town of Halifax over 50 years of Selectboard service, but don’t put him on a “superhero” pedestal. The only bug that bit him was his choice to step forward and serve people other than himself, one day at a time. He had “Uncle Bens” to encourage him, of course—like the neighbor on the Town Meeting floor who nominated Lewis for his first position in 1965.

Our Spiderman in this movie would watch Lewis be there for Britt and know the true origins of power in the ability any of us have, in any moment, to take charge. Whether owning what we have, or what we don’t have—like Patti said, you make the choice.