Ninjas, Pilots, & Superheroes

What do you want to be when you grow up? It’s a question that never seems to go away.

Twenty years ago, I was hell bent on becoming a ninja. The idea of being somewhat invisible by taking cover in the shadows of nightfall, and quietly completing missions totally captivated my imagination.

My neighbor, at the time, was an elderly gentleman. He enjoyed fishing and used live frogs as bate, which he kept in a cage behind his shed. This really bothered me. It was pretty obvious when he was getting ready for a trip, because frogs quickly multiplied in the cage a few days before he planned on leaving. It became my mission, as a ninja, to save all of the frogs that he captured. As the sun went down, I would change into my ninja outfit and sneak over to the cage to free the frogs. It was a success for a while, but he eventually decided to keep the cage in his garage. That was a sad day in ninja history – my short lived career was over.

There is also a rare breed of people who seem to have known the answer to this question since early childhood – two people come to mind…my brother and Phoenix Jones. My brother always wanted to be a commercial pilot. At 14 he had his private pilot’s license – my mom would drive him to the airport so he could fly a plane…by himself. He became a certified commercial pilot when he was 23.

Phoenix Jones

Phoenix Jones apparently wanted to be a super hero. He strolls the streets of Seattle in full super hero gear looking for bad guys. Is he a grown man? Yes. Is he a crazy person? Probably. Do I want to be his friend? YES!

I wonder if he would let me be his sidekick…