A Long Time Ago...

Thirty-three years ago today, my world changed forever.

I was only six, so it's not like I had a huge amount of life experience to be changed, but on this day, my world became infinitely larger.

You see, thirty-three years ago today is when this happened:



May 25, 1977, "Star Wars" was unleashed on the world.

My Uncle Doug took me to see it (thanks, Unca Guggie!), and it opened my eyes to a galaxy full of imagination in a way that nothing before could.

I had not yet discovered "The Hobbit", much less LOTR. I had not yet discovered "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". The original "Clash of the Titans" was still four years away, so my love of mythology and sword-and-sorcery tales was still sleeping undiscovered inside me.

"Star Wars" was literally the biggest thing I had ever seen.

From that moment on, it was "Star Wars" all the time. There were books, bubble-gum cards, comics, sheets, t-shirts, and those wonderful, wonderful toys.

To this day, my mother still complains about having to make black icing for the Darth Vader birthday cake I had the following year.

This was not the "Special Edition", which is the only version some people have ever seen. It was not titled "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope".

It was "Star Wars".

This was before VCR's (yes, kids, there was a time that we couldn't just watch any movie we wanted to any time we wanted to), and cable tv was still in its infancy, so seeing this in theaters was a BIG deal.

The older kid that lived down the street owned a movie projector, and he bought the two-reel home movie version of "Star Wars". A bunch of us neighborhood kids would go down to his house on warm summer nights and watch the abridged version on a screen in his backyard, the soundtrack playing on a cassette player.

It lit a fire in my imagination that is still going strong. It made me want to tell stories. In fact, the first "story" I ever wrote was "Wookie World", in second grade.

It wasn't very good, but that's not the point.

The point is this: although many other wonderful stories and movies have inspired my interests and fueled my imagination, "Star Wars" will always be the first and the grandest.

My life-long love of science fiction and storytelling can be traced directly back to this day, thirty-three years ago.

Even now, when I see those blue words "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away", followed by the giant yellow "Star Wars" flying into the screen, accompanied by John Williams' thrilling fanfare, I feel a surge of excitement.

Thirty-three years evaporate away, and I'm six again.

If you can't tell, I love this stuff.

Nothing else has come close.
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Thanks for reading my ranting,
Brad