Vivid Memory

You can't really see it on this scan, but this particular comic cover is marred by  a multitude of tiny water splotches. A comic grader would definitely drop at least a grade, maybe two for this defect. You can really only see the marks as you turn the comic in the light to catch the sheen, and then, just maybe, a person might wonder how that happened.

Well I know that 43 years ago, this summer, this comic was sitting on my bed next to the window. And a brief rain shower pummeled through the screen of the open window, moisturizing my twelve cent treasure. This was my brother's last few days before heading off to his first year of college, and I got mad at him because he's the one who opened the window and left it open as we went somewhere. No, I don't remember where we went, because that WAS 43 years ago. But I do remember feeling really punked that my brother didn't respect my possessions. Course maybe I was really cranky cause my big brother, who was 6 years older than me, was leaving home, leaving me to my childish dreams while he was going out, as a man, to the wide world.

Wow. I am holding the very comic that was central to a memory from 43 years ago. I first held this when I was 12, and those are the very rain drops. 

Memories don't get too much more vivid than that.

Detective Comics #331—Sept.1964—Carmine Infantino