"I feel so lonesome I could I die..."

If you were a ever a Cub Scout then you remember saying this:

 

Cub Scout Oath or
PromiseI, (name), promise to do my best
To do my duty to God and my country,
To help other people,
and
To obey the Law of the Pack.

 Bring back any memories? I used to be a Cub Scout myself back in the day, and yet I still only vaguely remember how the oath went. But thanks to my mom who keeps everything from my childhood, I still have some of my badges, the guidebook, and I think, my old cub scout uniform.

 As I promised Dan from It's a Dan's World(sorry Dan, last shameless plug I promise) I had another interesting story(well to me it was) concerning comics and childhood memories. 

This unfortunate event for me involved a Cub Scout meeting that never was, and Web Of Spider-Man#59.

I guess it was around the fall/late-fall of '89 when I was headed to a Cub Scout meeting. I believe I joined up a year earlier, so I was still enthusiastic about being a member. Well, I get dropped off by my mom at the Scoutmaster's house located on base housing. This was of course when I was living in West Germany, and there were plenty of military bases and housing to go around. So I get out, and my mom's asking me if she should stay just long enough to make sure that they're there. I say no. I would come to quickly regret that particular action of mine for a long while.

I went downstairs into the apartment complex, down into where technically you'd have a basement. Except this basement had several rooms inside. Down the hall I went, heading straight for where the meeting was supposed to take place. Well I got there, and to my horror, I discovered that the meeting had been cancelled. Why I wasn't told or made aware I don't know. The Scoutmaster I believe kind of blamed her husband, but that's neither here nor there. I panicked! The thoughts "Oh God, what am I going to do?" raced quickly through my young brain. I quickly made my way up the stairs with the vain hope that somehow by some miracle my mom would still be up there waiting on me. She wasn't, and I was screwed.

With no where else to go, or no way of contacting my parents(remember kids this was before cell phones had been invented) I was stuck waiting right where I was until it was time for my mom to come pick me up from "the meeting." I think I started to cry a little, due to panic, but that suddenly stopped once I saw a fellow cub scout show up about 5-10 minutes later. I quickly dried my eyes and explained to the kid and his dad that the meeting had been cancelled. So they left. I was feeling like "take me with you", but in truth that probably wouldn't have been a good idea, since if I left with them, who would tell my mother where I was? So I was stuck there, waiting for the whole 2-hour duration of the meeting to wind down so that I could go home.

I sat there on the apartment steps, as the sky grew darker, and just started singing church songs( I went to church back then so sue me) as a means to keep myself both occupied and from seriously panicking. Bear in mind, I didn't have a watch on, so I couldn't tell what time it was. I believe it was about an hour or so later, who should show up, but the scoutmaster herself, along with her husband and son. I was both relieved and pissed at the same time! She saw me, and saw that I had been crying, and was bewildered as to why I was there. I explained to her what happened, and she instantly felt bad for me. My mother showed up not to long after that, and then the scoutmaster explained what happened. Again, for some unknown reason, nobody felt the need to call me that the meeting had been cancelled. Looking back on it, I find it strange that me and that other cub scout member were the only ones not to know about that, but everyone else somehow knew. Weird huh?

Well, to her credit, the woman did fell really bad about the situation, and apologized to me and my mother profusely about the whole thing. I did forgive her, but man was I still a little pissed about the whole ordeal.

My mom made things better though, by taking me to the BX, where the bookstore was located. That day, for my troubles, I bought Web Of Spider-Man#59, and all was right with the world again.

I guess I should add in all fairness, that perhaps karma had a hand in how that whole situation played out.

Yes folks, this is where the twist worthy of M. Night Shamalayan comes into the story. You see just couple of weeks prior, I had taken it upon myself to take off during one of the cub scout meetings to go visit a nearby friend. I guess I was gone a little longer than I thought, because when I came back, there was the Scoutmaster in hysterics because she thought I had been kidnapped or something else as equally horrific. Yes, karma is a bitch indeed, because I would later pay for what I did with the above mentioned story. So I guess in those terms, the scales once again balanced themselves out.

Oh, but now you're probably wondering "Is that it?" "What about WoS#59?"

Well I guess I can quickly sum that issue up by saying how cool I thought it was, and that it was one of the 1st Spider-Man comics I'd ever bought.

Basically, Spider-Man, powered by the powers of Captain Universe, shows up to save his usual sparring partner Puma, from getting his ass handed to him by Titania. This was probably the 1st time I'd ever saw Spider-Man beat on a woman, but for some reason it didn't seem to bother me. She was a villain, and that was all the justification young Mr.Morbid needed back then. 

Oh, and it was also an Act of Vengeance tie-in, which was a total bonus for me since I really loved that storyline.

Maybe in the future I talk about my love affair with Web of Spider-Man back in the day, as I was a devoted fan of the title. I specifically like the Name of the Rose storyline that ran through the later issues of the series; namely issues 84-89. That is definitely a post for another day. Idk why, but I just loved Alex Saviuk's art back then.