Irene and I drove to Ohio this week to take in the exhibition The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and while I enjoyed that part of our trip, what I was looking forward to the most was our visit to the neighborhood where Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met in 1930 when they were on the staff of the Glenville High School student newspaper.

And so, 85 years and one day after Action Comics #1 went on sale, introducing the world to the Man of Steel, an event without which I would not have had my life, we made a pilgrimage to two of the spots where it all began.

While Joe Shuster’s apartment building no longer exists, Jerry Siegel’s boyhood home still stands. So we started with a visit to 10622 Kimberly Avenue, which is a private residence. It’s obvious, from both the whimsical window dressing and the decorations surrounding the lot, that the current owners are well aware of the property’s importance.

I have no idea how many others make the journey to pay their respects, but we were the only ones gawking for the 15 of so minutes we were there.

The street signs at the corner of Kimberly and Parkwood also read Jerry Siegel Lane and Lois Lane.

We then drove nine blocks away to the vacant lot where the apartment building Joe Shuster lived in once stood, which is now a vacant lot. If you’d also like to visit this location, plug “Parkwood Drive and Amor Avenue” into your GPS.

The fence which surrounds that lot is decorated with the cover to Action Comics #1 as well as the entirety of the first Superman story. Here I am kneeling by the beginning of that display.

And the street sign at this location is also given an honorary naming.

As Irene and I drove off, I thought … without Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and what they created, we’d never have found each other.

Thanks for everything! I wish the world had treated you better.