Childhood Hero

Everyone has their childhood hero that they thought was the coolest person alive. Some people had Superman, others had Spider-man and the X-men, some had Archie, Arnold, Popeye, and many others. Your hero would be the person you saw on TV every night or someone you read about every day. Someone doing heroic things to awe and inspire you as a child, or in some cases the dastardly villain that you cheered for instead. The masterminds that you admired and hoped would win even if it meant the end of the world.

My childhood hero was none other than the unstoppable Godzilla. I grew up watching the subbed and sometimes dubbed versions of his movies. I spent the whole movies waiting for the moment he'd finally appear on screen to kick the crap out of Tokyo or fight the other monster kicking the crap out of Tokyo. He was technically the antagonist of the movie, but I still loved him. My brothers and I had all the toys and everything. Every night, Godzilla was our bedtime story. Jaime would have us all in his and Mom's room on the bed and put one in. Some nights we drove 45 minutes to the mall just to buy a new one. I was so young that I glazed over the story lines and actual plot, sometimes falling asleep, but I'd always be alert in time for the music to play Godzilla on screen.

What a great way to end a night. Watch a nuclear reacted giant lizard destroy a city either just to destroy it or by saving it from other monsters such a a three headed lizard (King Ghidora, and his return as Mecha-King Ghidora), a mutant plant monster (Biollante), an alien like creature (Destroyah) an alien frozen version of him self (Space Godzilla) a robot (Gigan) giant bat thing (Rodan(incidentally, Rodan was my worst nightmare as a kid. He was the one thing in all the movies that scared the crap out of me and I hated watching the movies with him in it.)) and also he fought things trying to save Tokyo such as MechaGodzilla, (a human powered mechanical Godzilla), and Mothra, (giant moth).

When I was growing up, watching this in my impressionable years, no one was stronger than him. No one could beat him. Tokyo just had to take it until he got bored and went home. His roar was more powerful than Mufasa's. The way his spines would glow right before he wasted the world with his nuclear blast. He was just awesome to me. Nobody could take out this amazing radioactive dinosaur.

Though, I feel it is worth pointing out, that for all the love I had for this city smashing dino, I also feared him. I was afraid of his massive self showing up in rural Ohio and taking us down to kill some time. The nights would be filled with hauntings of the sound of him and every creak was him coming for us. Though the fear there was nothing compared to the fear of Rodan. A freaking giant bat that was bloodthirsty. I couldn't handle that. There was no way I could survive the night with something like that loose in the world. My only hope was, if Rodan came for me, Godzilla would be there too to save me. Not because he cared, but because he's the world's biggest bully with a huge chip on his shoulder and he'd just happen to be there at the right time to protect us. That's what my little mind reasoned out.

Godzilla kicked butt and inspired a little kid like me to be destructive and intense in all I do. Probably not the best message from a childhood hero, but it's done me well so far in life.