
Picture from here
You know those moments when your a kid and you find something that you can do that you think is extraordinary? I had one of those moments and it dealt with climbing walls. I was so convinced it was extraordinary that I thought I had been bitten my a mutant spider. I think it helped that I was into Spider-Man at the time thanks to the Electric Company.
My super power was being able to climb walls, literally. In the townhouse I grew up in (it was called a condomimium, but I don’t really think it was a condo) the walls in the stairwell were close enough together that I could shimmy up the walls by putting a set of hands and feet on both sides. My grandmother’s house was the same way. I’m sure having a child somewhere between 5–8 years old literally climbing the walls of the house was enough to run my family up the walls themselves.
They spent hours trying to convince me that I wasn’t related to Spider-Man. I also remember them not being happy about scrubbing footprints off the wall at eye level. Somewhere along this time frame I also managed to get a picture of myself on Spider-Man’s lap taken at Midway Mall in Elyria. I had that picture for years, but for some reason it’s now missing :(.
I do remember attempting to fly and levitate for years, but I wasn’t as successful as I was at being a wall crawler.