“She claims to be born, July 2, 1776. Not the Fourth of July, mind you. “The history people got a little confused about that,” she said. “It's not like I was born at all once, you know. Things took more time back in those days.”

I don't know what to think about that. She seems so earnest as she spouts what is obvious nonsense. I ask her why she just recently showed up. “I've always been here. I just haven't always been a superhero. Usually I'm just the girl next door. But it just seemed to me that right now, America needs something a little more . . . I don't know . . . energetic.”

She is that, to be sure. It seems an effort for her to keep from bouncing out of her chair as we talk. My interview required three sessions. She couldn't sit down for more than about a half-hour, so she had to take a break. Each time she stepped outside and flew off into the Portland sky. There were no supervillains to fight, but I learned that during those breaks she cleared up two accidents on I-5 - doing a tow-truck's job in a fraction of the time - and performed repairs for three different motorists stranded on the shoulder. After her third such outing I asked her whether she rescued any cats from trees. She just laughed.

I asked her how she felt about replacing the late Lady Paladin in the Rose City Five. “I'm just amazed. I was rooting for her for her entire career. And when I learned that she had been addicted to painkillers for all those years and went crazy from withdrawals - my heart just broke. But in America you don't have to be perfect to be a hero. She'll always be a hero to me.”

Everything she owns fits in an old army-surplus knapsack. For our interview she wears her red, white and blue super-suit, which she made herself. She has a couple changes of street-clothes, which she got at a Goodwill store in Oklahoma. She returns from one of her breaks with a Dutch Bros coffee in her hand, bought with some bills that a grateful motorist had thrust in her hands. She doesn't have a credit card. “I think they're worried I'll be a deficit spender,” she jokes. In truth, it's the banking laws that keep her on a cash basis. The only ID she can provide is a Kroger Club card (which says “American Gal”) - she has no birth certificate, no passport, no social security number. She worries a little bit about the INS. “I might have to fly back across the border if they ever catch me.”

Donations aren't her only source of income. “I'm pretty good with tech. Mechanical, electronic, computer software . . . and I'm really good at the high-energy stuff. So I help heroes out with their costumes and vehicles and such. It's fun. But I do it for heroes only - no corporations, no military. I don't want to get tied down to anything like that.”