Star Wars, Nothin' But . . . Star Waaarrrs

Ahhh. I can look forward to the weekend. You are damn right I am going to see Episode III, Revenge of the Lucas. It is great to see how many folks really love these movies despite the Jar Jar horsesheet.
______________

If you are in your mid to late thirties, this is a watershed. A tribute to when you were about to turn ten and were an Atari addict. And that $5 bucks to mow a neighbors lawn? Serious frikkin' moolah.

We rode our bikes to school, and band practice. And everywhere else we could think of. No helmets you sissies! We were boy scouts burning and hiking our a**es off at Camp Don Harrington as we learned about semaphore, smoking grapevine ("gettin' nothin' here man, what's this supposed to do?"), dealing with thug older boy patrol leaders, and of course mumbly peg, and how close you could get a hiking boot to the campfire without it melting the bottom.

My gang I ran with were still dreamers, and were dungeon&dragon and gamma-world masters of all we surveyed. I had discovered that my Dad had been a member in a sci-fi book club during it's fantastic golden days (50's and 60's). I read his stash of Asimov, Henlein, Clarke, and Simak, over and over and over and over . . .
_______________

It was the start of summer in Amarillo. May 1977. You know 'em. Kids getting out of school, families planning on driving major miles to somewhere on vacation. Cookouts, hiking (always with the hiking!) and camping in Palo Duro. It looked like every other summer was about to happen.

My older brother and his wife had come into town from downstate, and were going on about some new movie they had seen. It had alien creatures, spaceships, robots, a bad guy in a black costume, laser guns, and sword fighting with laser swords or somethin'. My ears perked up from the Roger Zelazny book I was absorbed in. I peppered them with questions.
_______________

A plan was made. The movie was playing at the Tascosa drive-in theater. This was cool because you could take a car full of snacks. You gen. Y'ers missed this.

My Dad had gotten rid of the gas guzzling Ford station wagon the year before and had gone down to the Honda dealership to get a yellow CVCC (Known now as the Civic) after going to the Shell station for a fill-up on Nelson street and being told to come back Thursday. This was a SERIOUSLY smaller vehicle for me and my sister and the folks, so we took two cars. The Honda and my brothers dark orange AMC pacer.

I was a-twitching. I loved all the movies my sister and I had seen at the Tascosa and the ones from the balcony of the Paramount theater on Washington Street Saturdays. There were Sinbad movies, '20, 000 leagues under the sea', etc. but they all seemed a bit cheesy. Entertaining, but trying too hard. Claymation ya know? So what would Star Wars (Promising title) be like?

We paid our $1.50/person, drove up to the speaker post, got out the speaker and hooked it on the window, passed around the popcorn, cracked the icey cans of Dr. Pepper open after peeling them from the foil mom wrapped 'em in to keep them cold, and nibbled on home-made m&m cookies. It started to get dark, the great west texas night sky twinkled overhead, and the John Williams soundtrack suddenly blasted out of the one tinny speaker. The opening crawl rolled. (You know it, "It was a period of civil war . . .") Then . . .

How to describe watching that opening scene for the first time? A ship flew past, apparently being shot at by . . . a MASSIVE gray ship that seemed to barely skim over our heads. It went on forever. Lasers were blasting all around. Classical Wagnerian-like music washed over us. Troops in white armor blasted away at crewman on the ship. Robots, lightsabers, fighter ships, alien worlds, alien bars, the force, good guys and baaaad guys.

The summer blockbuster had been born. The galaxy far far away was as near as the closest theater.
_____________________

Most folks don't realize that the Christmas that year had no star wars toys! Bless our parents for their patience as we jumped up and down like idiots demanding StarWars stuff from Santa. No one could have realized the success Star Wars would be, so it was not until '78' that every spare dime I had was consumed by Star Wars action figures ($1.13 with tax) starting with C3PO, cokes, Zero candy bars, and maybe another action figure (Luke in stormtrooper uniform with realistic blaster ready for your kid sister to swallow.)

It was a great time to be a kid in 1978. And for the next few years. You could get together with buddies down your street who had the landspeeder and Death Star action set. What the galaxy contained was unlimited. Imagination soared. Heroes could exist. I bought another action figure from the change I found behind Dad's lazy-boy. There were more Star Wars movies. A Star Wars x-wing video game showed up at the 7-eleven on 27th and Nelson street to suck up lunch money.
____________________

Time passed. Toys that mean so much get thrown over backyard fences, or launched strapped to a bottle rocket. 28 years later I find myself thinking about those summers as I grew into a teen, then a high school student. How I smiled at age 26 when I ran across C3PO in a box of junk, and thought about the worlds we explored. Next to him, an R2D2 figure whose rotating head was rusted and would not turn and click anymore. Still a treasure.

I dunno about you, but I feel that first Star Wars movie came at the best time for America. We could dream again after Nixon and the oil embargo, and killer inflation.

I wonder if other generations feel as I do. . . that I was lucky, no priviledged, to have such memories containing family and friends and had endless new worlds to discover. That I grew up without the terror and fear shouted now at us NON STOP on tv, newspapers, the internets, and airports that is America 21st century.

Lord, I pray for that same childhood for my new daughter.

-Prodigal Son