Radford Noone Research Service

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Mighty Drofdar

The Mighty Drofdar: The Myth of the Superhero

 

I can see it now on my resume. “Dwight Radford is a regular contributor to The Living Journal, the monthly publication of the South Point Family History Center in Draper, Utah.” I suppose that’s impressive. However, to be totally honest and add “…which is published at the Utah State Prison” wouldn’t win me a Nobel prize for literature.

The title of my monthly column is “The Mighty Drofdar.” One of the guys, Sam, created a caricature of me as a superhero. After brooding for a week or so on which superhero fits me, the guys in a group effort, decided that none of them were adequate (maybe Mighty Mouse, but I didn’t suggest it). So Sam in his earthy wisdom simply spelled Radford backwards and came up with Drofdar. I thought it was imaginative.

Sam’s creativity shouldn’t have surprised me. He’s an in-your-face kind of man in his late thirties who is well educated and thoughtful. He’s the kind of man that can question your reality just by knowing him. He was one of the first inmates I met at the prison and when he’s in his good mood he’s the nicest person you’ll ever meet, and you wonder how he could even be in prison. Then when he’s in his nasty side you have no doubt why he’s there. So the fact that this intelligent, creative, and complex man would come up with The Mighty Drofdar as my alter-ego before any of the other men didn’t come as any cosmic revelation. Now my column has a drawing of a hunky, hulky man lifting weights as the lead into my article every month. “The Mighty Drofdar” is written beside the drawing. Yeah, like a hunky, hulky man lifting weights even begins to describe me. I’m Mr. Couch Potato. Since nobody has invented a superhero character for the Couch Potato (other than perhaps Mr. Potato Head) sitting in front of his computer, I’ll settle for The Mighty Drofdar. As a short, overweight, white guy The Mighty Drofdar was better than what they could have come up.

             As I think about the Mighty Drofdar image, I’m thrown into the myth of the superhero. By myth I don’t mean a lie or superstition, I mean the pure definition of what a myth is. In this case, I’m thinking in terms of a story that conveys a more profound underlying story or message. A myth itself is an effective tool in grasping the reality that we find ourselves in. As our needs change, the myth also changes. The narrative of a good myth speaks for each generation in a new way in which the complexities of life can be broken down into bite-size pieces and understood. The power of the myth is always the lesson to be learned, whereas the myth itself is the vehicle to carry that lesson from generation to generation. Excellent western myths range from Robin Hood to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. They change as the need for them changes within culture.

For people who aren’t comfortable with the word myth to describe what we’re trying to grasp in this thing called life, there’s the closely related word “metanarrative.” A metanarrative exists outside the narrative of a story and allows us to unpack the complexities of our life and our situations. It is often in my conversations with the guys that I come to understand loaded words like myth and metanarrative at new and deeper levels.

I have found myself comfortable volunteering at the prison. In some ways these guys with their varied and checkered backgrounds seem familiar to me. I even see some of them as kindred spirits. I do forget sometimes how the volunteers must appear through the eyes of the guys as they seek to reconstruct their lives. Our lives are not that much different than anyone else’s. We get up in the morning, eat, go to work, fight with kids, struggle to pay the bills, go home, watch television, and eventually make our way to bed for the evening. Pretty non-eventful, and from our perspective, it’s very non-superhero like. It’s hardly the life that myths and metanarratives are built around.

I think the first time that I realized how I was being viewed by the inmates was while I was typing an article for The Living Journal. In this case I was needed to fill in at the front desk for awhile. So with a grumble I vacated my borrowed bat cave of a back office to babysit up front. In reality, they babysit me, but to any patrolling correctional officers it would look like the opposite as if I was in control. This is important since there are no officers assigned to the chapel area although they do periodically patrol.

The editors of the newsletter needed an article, so while the inmates in the room were busy on their computers doing their research, I was busy at the front desk typing away at my thoughts on my computer screen. I can type real fast and I use all the correct fingers too. As I was blazing away across the keyboard, I became aware that I was being watched. I slowly looked up from my computer screen only to find that the twenty odd men in the entire room had cocked their heads to the side and were staring at me. In that stupid kind of way I just said, “What?” Did something happen and I just missed it? One of the men said, “You type so fast.” “Oh…,” I said.

What I realized in that moment was that most of these men, hunt and peck on the computer. For many of them, the family history center provided them with the first time they have ever done genealogy or used a computer – let alone a keyboard! Some can keep up with me, but that’s certainly not the majority. In that moment I wondered what they must be thinking about me. If they have never seen anybody type that fast then to them it must have ranked up there with the superhero stuff that only a character like the Mighty Drofdar could do. I was slightly embarrassed, so when it came time for me to vacate and go to my bat cave office, I was more than glad. It was such a little thing in my world to be able to type like the Road Runner can run, but in their world it took on a new significance. It’s these incidents that I’ve come to realize help to create the myth of the superhero. Maybe without me realizing it, the statement I was making was that if Dwight can type this fast then one day so can you. That would indeed be revolutionary taking their educational pursuits to an entirely new level.

Some of the inmates think that we volunteers are perfect in that superhero kind of way. The kind of superhero who goes out and saves the universe. Lord knows that’s not true, but it’s still an unconscious perception that goes with the job description. We fit into the prison system in a really weird way. Since we’re not prison authority or anything remotely close to a correctional officer, we tend to take on a family dynamic. We’re sort of outside the prison food chain, so it would be natural for the family idea to become reconstructed in the minds of the inmates.

I’ve heard on more than one occasion that so and so “is like a parent to me.” Then again, considering the dysfunction that some of these guys have come out of -- prison is a step up for them. So to reconstruct a family based upon functional parents, even if they are pretend parents, may not be such a bad thing. To be around volunteers (from any religious services program) is to be around people who, from the men’s perspective, don’t beat up on each other, don’t manipulate, aren’t addicted to drugs, don’t rape, murder, and are “normal.” The example of a volunteer shows some of the men that normality wasn’t what they grew up in. To some of these men, that is the definition of a superhero in itself. It’s around this “family” that the mythos develops. Unfortunately, some of the guys won’t get it and don’t care to. They are still wondering why they are in prison.

I’m not sure how I fit into the family. I’m about twenty plus years younger than most of the volunteers, so my position falls more into the buddy category. The kind of buddy you sleep on the trampoline with in the summer when you’re fifteen years old and tell all your fantasies to as Mom and Dad are safely asleep in the house – away from you.

Maybe for most people being exposed to new ideas and situations is uncomfortable. In my volunteer work at the prison I’ve come to just accept that every person I meet and every situation I find myself in will be unique. Every shift I wonder what I will encounter.

One day at the prison, Jacob and I were discussing the themes in his life. Jacob is young, skinny, medium height, in his early twenties. He’s full of life in that way that I barely remember. He literally looks like he should be riding a skateboard through a suburban neighborhood rather than wearing prison white. He’s trying to come to terms with the horrors of his childhood where he was sexually abused by his grandfather, as well as being beaten and tortured by his father. He was interested in writing his personal history. Classes in this subject are offered at the chapel but Jacob couldn’t take them because the time conflicted with his work schedule. So as a researcher and writer, I was filling him in on what he was probably missing in the classes so he could get started writing on his own. In his case, I suggested writing a personal history, even if he were the only person to ever read it, and it would be therapeutic for him. His comment was “This prison isn’t exactly the cherry on top of my life’s accomplishments.” For some reason, that hit me hard and I thought deeply about that for the next few days, because I don’t see him without major accomplishments in prison. While incarcerated, he has received an education and has become involved in religious programs. He has made a point to expand his view of the world beyond the tragedy of his childhood, and has sought to understand the family dynamics that contributed to why his family abused him. Then the revelation came. I see many of the guys as superheroes. To me they are the Mighty Drofdar incarnate – not me. This was new to me as it came barreling into my conscious mind. I develop a metanarrative about them just as much as they do about me.

As part of my metanarrative, I see that many of these guys want to better themselves. Then I weigh that against the days that I just don’t want to do better.  These same guys want to explore and expand their experience beyond the day in and day out drone of life. Some days I welcome the hum-drum and wish for nothing better. I see that many of these men are actively pursuing trying to contact and offer amends to their families whom they have alienated, hurt, or done some really terrible things too. Then I compare that to the days when I don’t care to contact my family. Many of these men want a spiritual path that speaks to them, and they actively seek it out. Then I compare that with the mornings when I’m just too lazy to leave the house and go to church.

During my time at the family history center, I observe the men enrolled in the intense therapy program offered to sex offenders. I see how they struggle with self-hate and guilt when the light bulb goes on, and they understand with utter horror what they have done. For me when it comes to my own personal faults and shortcomings, I’d rather leave the lights off completely.

 They make a conscious choice to claw their way through the muddy scum and succeed even knowing that when (if) they get out (Utah has indeterminate sentencing), they will always be a “convicted felon” in the eyes of the law and society. Would I in their situation have that kind of strength? I honestly don’t know.

Sam is usually happy to see me. I wouldn’t vouch for some of the other volunteers, but for some reason, I’m never a threat to him. It must be my couch potato persona. I guess being a short, fat, white guy at the prison does have its tactical advantages. There are really three Sams in his big handsome well groomed body.

                                                                                           Continued….