I might have been Clark Kent/Superman in the Windjammer Days Street Parade but the real hero was the young man who retrieved my cell phones.

Being in the back of Boothbay Railway Village Museum’s antique truck – thank you again BRVM for letting us use the Boothbay Register truck for the parade – was a lot of fun. However, there isn’t a lot of head room and it was a bit warm with the suit coat, white dress shirt and T-shirt on.

After we were detoured onto Western Avenue from Sea Street at the conclusion of the parade, with police keeping traffic away from the downtown area full of pedestrians, I decided to take off my suit coat which contained my personal and my work phones. I placed those on the small table which also held an antique Remington typewriter. 

As we rounded the corner faster than I expected near Fullerton Court, the table, typewriter and my phones went flying. It was kind of like slow motion as my phones flew out of the truck and bounced onto the side of the road. With other parade vehicles, including some very heavy and wide fire trucks following behind us, we couldn’t stop.

My first thought was to jump into my car when we got back to the newspaper office and see if, for some miraculous reason, the phones survived.

As we pulled up beside Good ‘N You at the stop, a young man in a red Jeep-type vehicle with dogs sticking their heads out the window, yelled out “I have your phones” and he was holding them in his hand to show me.

I couldn’t believe it. 

In the elation of the moment, when we pulled into the driveway, the still unidentified young man handed me the phones – no damage. He also helped us pull off some of the decorations on the truck.

I recognized his face but no name comes to mind. But I will be on the lookout and thank him again. If he reads this, I hope he comes forward to identify himself.

Speaking of thank you, we wish to also thank Jeff Sandner of Station Road Repair for lending us his trailer on which the truck was securely placed for the parade.

As Jimmy Olsen might have said, “That was a close one, Superman!”