You can tell a great deal about somebody if you know what heroes he holds dear. It's like knowing who he hangs out with and in what pub. It’s as good as stalking him for a week through the gutters of the city - or through the coffeehouses or the jazz clubs, as the case may be. We are what we eat, for sure, but we are who we emulate, just as certainly. So, let's get started analyzing Jay (this is, after all, the UNauthorized auto-bio) by detailing who some of his heroes are, were, have been. And why.
Jay’s favorite heroes have rarely been who you might expect, definitely not the usual crowd. But then, Jay’s not the usual lot himself, he urges it to be said. “I’m not noted for conformity.”
First off, the Man of Steel. Nope. No way. Jay's peers admired Superman - that is, if Jay can be said to have had any actual peers. Jay’s "contemporaries," we’ll call them with a wicked grin, took their hero worship seriously. They donned capes fashioned of faded beach towels and were able to leap tall sand sculptures in a single bound. They were faster than a speeding Lionel train set. Big fat hairy deal.
Jay, on the other hand, didn't consider the Caped One eligible for hero worship, much less emulation. On the contrary, he considered Superman’s other half, Clark Kent, the stuff of wannabe dreams. Clark was so immensely coooool. Definitely the stuff of hero-hood, au contraire the brash Superman. The oh-so-cool Mister Manners could do the presto-change-o thing in a handy phone booth, stomp the appropriate villains, and reappear all pressed and clean with his reporter's notebook full of pithy information. And just in the nick of time for the first-edition deadline at the ol’ Planet. Talk about a nose for news!
When Metropolis - the town, silly... When Metropolis was threatened, and Superman’s talents were called forth, Clark was a sure follow-on, dependably scooping up duhh-on-the-street interviews, gathering background information, and oh, by the way, saving Aiken - oops, Metropolis - from harm in his other identity. He never even got winded. Must've never got long-winded, either, ‘cause the editors never appeared to give him any grief about eating up too much space on the front page.
Through it all, and “it all” was quite an ordeal every afternoon on television, Mister Kent managed his double identity without ever requiring the services of a therapist. The Phone Company might have been a little peeved from time to time, but they never let on. His bosses at the newspaper, supposedly none the wiser about his double identity, either never suspected or were too busy with their editorial pens and chose to ignore their reporter’s cute tricks. So, Clark gracefully held onto his job at the newspaper office, gathering the scoops in spite of constant interruptions for saving the town or the dunce Lois from doom. Or themselves. Now THAT was a hero!
Would Clark make a go of it at CBS News now? CNN? Mister Mild Manners probably wouldn't last ten minutes or one dead princess, whichever came first. Something about mild manners and shoving a microphone into a grieving face would probably not click. Besides, the world was easier to save back then, when the good and bad guys were easy to tell apart. And politics weren’t required.
Jay admired not only Clark's dual role, but also his very mild manneredness. Clark Kent was truly a gentle man, keeping his powerful alterself a secret even when showing off would have been soooo much fun.
During most of Jay's early years he was beset, tortured, taunted, and otherwise made miserable by aggressive male contemporaries, not to say peers. So, it’s hardly surprising that his hero wasn't the swashbuckling aggressor half of the Superman bundle, but the debonair Clark. The fact that Clark made his way as a newspaper reporter was even better. Ah, the stuff of heroes: pad in pocket and press pass tucked into the ubiquitous hat, but secretly attired in tights underneath the Fifties’ most conservative suit. Let the next-door neighbor boys and the down-the-street brats emulate Superman with their striped towels, their blue pajamas, and their short flights off high porches. Jay wore glasses and carried a notebook.
Maybe it sounds dramatic from this perspective, but even in Jay’s days as a child he wanted a career in communications. Printing and publishing, maybe, newspapering, bookwriting, even radio. Not television, but that would have been okay if none of the others came through. As it turned (turns?) out, Jay eventually achieved plenty more things that hadn't been invented back in the days of leaping over low hedges with the imagination on high beam. Yes, there was electricity, and you didn’t have to fly a kite to get a charge out of it.
Jay was good enough at some things to make a go of them later in life, and bad enough at lots of things to develop a serious aversion to being laughed at. Kite flying was one of those latter. And basketball. And baseball. And... well, lots of other things.