Most kids, I think, at some point, wanted to be superheroes. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m pretty sure I was the only one who fought evil with flowers, though. Not plants, mind you…that’s been done. Not flower power in the hippie sense either, because I was born way too late for all of that. No, I was just going through a bit of a phase where I wanted to be a flower expert when I grew up, so apart from being a mini encyclopedia on the subject, I worked it into our playground games. We were all playing superhero, and I come bursting onto the scene as Flower Dude, commanding an army of native shrubs and climbers, blasting calla lilies from my hands and just generally having complete mastery over every single form of flower and their unique powers. Their…flower powers. My best friend Ray could shoot lasers from his hands, Jeremy could move at super speed (we all had to pretend to move slowly when he was around) and I think there was a kid called Nathaniel who could turn into any dinosaur. But I was the only one with flower powers, because that was my thing and I might as well insert it into everything.
Whenever I learned about a new type of flowering plant, I assigned a power, which technically made me the most versatile and powerful hero on the playground. And of course, all my school projects were either about flowers or linked back to them in some way. I remember in school making a poster that was supposed to be about The Great War. I made an argument that Australia adopting the callistemon endeavour could have stopped the war by sending the enemy some flowers and calming them down. I didn’t get a very good grade for that project.
It was a phase, of sorts, but I still remember a lot of it. I should probably use that knowledge for good and do a bit of gardening as a side job.
-John