Captain Mac's Adventure Trails

In Tampa, back in the Fifties, Captain Mac was pretty much the only afternoon kid's programming on television. We didn't have a TV for quite a while but my grandparents got one in '53 so my grandmother and her friends could watch the Coronation.

My brother and I quickly asserted our privilege to watch Captain Mac most afternoons. I think that even then, we thought he was kind of a dork, but oh how we loved his programming: Flash Gordon, Ramar of the Jungle, and (my personal favorite) Crusader Rabbit.

My addiction to Crusader Rabbit led to a moment of soul-searching. The television was in the sun room, which had a pair of glass doors between it and the living room. On this particular afternoon, during a commercial I'd gone to the kitchen for a drink. When I returned, Crusader Rabbit had just begun and my fiend of a brother had closed and locked the glass doors, as well as turning down the sound.

I was incandescent with rage. I yelled and threatened and briefly imagined getting in there and picking up a sharp-edged little metal clock that sat on a table and whacking my 7 year-old brother over the head.

And almost instantly, 11 year-old me realized how awful that was, even to have had such a thought.

I don't remember if he finally let me in or what. But I do (obviously) remember the impact that brief rage had on me.  The darkness that lurks in our core.