CAPTAIN STICKY
THE ONLY REAL SUPERHERO

Every generation claims to have superheroes.

Mine actually did.

His name was Richard Pesta, although almost nobody called him that. To California and eventually to many other places, he was simply Captain Sticky.

He was impossible to overlook.

Standing well over six feet tall and weighing nearly four hundred pounds, with a booming voice and a permanent twinkle in his eye, Richard could fill a room before he even said hello. Wherever he went, people remembered him.

Unlike comic book heroes, his superpowers were entirely practical.

He campaigned tirelessly for stronger laws protecting elderly residents in California's convalescent homes, long before elder abuse became a subject of public concern. In recognition of his work, Governor Pat Brown presented him with an official California driver's license issued in the name Captain Sticky.

I suspect Superman would have been jealous.

Richard co-hosted a weekly organic gardening radio program with the well-known horticulturist Bruce Asakawa and devoted much of his life to promoting sustainable gardening, landscape design, and environmental education. One of his favorite projects introduced thousands of third-grade students to the joys of organic gardening.

He believed you could improve the world one garden at a time.

He also believed every parade was improved by flying Twinkies.

Captain Sticky never missed one if they would allow him the use his army tank on a public street.

Dressed in his homemade superhero costume and flowing cape, he would shoulder an air-powered bazooka and launch Twinkies into the crowd.

"If I miss," he'd laugh, "the worst that can happen is they'll be sticky."

Children adored him.

Adults usually stared for a moment before deciding they did too.

When I met Richard, he was running the American Kelp Corporation.

I had planted fifteen hundred avocado trees and was experimenting with organic fertilizers. Richard knew everything there was to know about kelp. We joined forces.

I knew trucks, tractors, and heavy equipment.

He knew customers.

It proved to be an excellent division of labor.

Every morning my telephone would ring.

"I've got another idea!"

It didn't matter whether it involved kelp, farming, Thailand, or something no reasonable person had considered before breakfast.

By the end of every conversation, I usually believed it was brilliant.

Richard possessed a rare talent.

He could make impossible ideas sound as though everyone else had simply been slow to think of them.

When business began doing well, Richard suggested we celebrate with a trip to Thailand.

It was my first visit to Southeast Asia.

More than thirty years later, I am still here.

Some friendships don't merely influence your life.

They quietly redirect it.

Captain Sticky eventually fought the one battle his enthusiasm couldn't win.

I stayed beside him in Bangkok during those final difficult days, carrying out every one of his last wishes.

Even his farewell reflected the extraordinary man he had been.

Friends gathered from around the world.

His ashes were scattered on the Chao Phraya River.

Sometimes I imagine Captain Sticky is still somewhere out there—wearing a cape, solving problems no one else noticed, introducing children to gardening, and firing Twinkies into crowds.

Because even in the afterlife...

"The worst that could happen is someone gets a little sticky."