Childhood memories - Part 1

Here's a new feature that I hope becomes a regular contribution to the blog. You never know with me how long I'll maintain interest, but I do have a great deal of "childhood memories", which I can continually pick my brain for. This is probably because personally I look very fondly upon my childhood, particularly the early part growing up in the 80's. Later on in life I would learn about lots of stupid political bull crap that was going down during that time period, but as a child you usually have the wonderful luxury of ignorance. Because of this I was able to focus completely on the awesomeness of geeky 80's pop culture. So as a result not only do I have a huge soft spot for my childhood, but also for the 80's. I often find myself daydreaming about what I would do if I had a time machine, a flying Delorean no doubt. On a daily basis my coworkers need only peer over my short cubical wall to find me staring off into space, day dreaming about raiding the toy isles at my local drug store in 1985. But alas that damnable time machine has yet to be invented, so I will have to fall back to my memories as a barely acceptable outlet.

In 1984ish I recall being an absolute Star Wars obsessed nut. Many kids at the time were, however my case was a bit strange considering I had yet to see any Star Wars movie the entire way through. I still haven't gotten a concrete answer to why that is, but the standard answer when I interrogate my parents is that "I was still too young, and they thought I would be scared". This does seem likely since in addition to being in love with Star Wars, I was also incredibly scared of the dark - more specifically the "monsters" that lurked in the dark. Going back to my original point, I had yet to see a full Star Wars film. I recall seeing bits and pieces, we did have HBO at the time but my parents still hadn't bought a VCR. I have this specific memory of seeing on tv the scene from Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker fights Darth Vader, and for some reason I thought this was from the 10th movie. I don't know where that came from but wouldn't that have been cool if there was actually 10 classic Star Wars films. But I'm getting off point again. The person responsible for my Star Wars obsession was most certainly my older brother. Being 5 years older than me he had lived through the birth of Star Wars and already had an opportunity to bask in the glory of the Kenner action figure toy line. My brother always took it upon himself to school me on what was "cool" in current toy fashion. In fact he was always reliable for this up until he eventually lost interest in toys. So, thanks to my brothers tutelage I was a blooming Star Wars fan who was starving for more. My other family members also contributed to this by buying me the awesome Star Wars toys. In particular my great grandma, who bought me the coveted Jabba the Hutt Action Playset.

In 1985ish I believe we finally moved into our first real house. We had always rented before this time, and now my parents were finally happy home owners. Not long after this we were at a local supermarket, where my brother and I would browse through the VHS video cassette rental section. And there I saw it, the Return of the Jedi video cassette, the most amazing sight to my young eyes!

I begged my mom to rent it for us. This would be no small task since in addition to renting the video this also meant renting , yes renting a VCR to take home with us. It wouldn't be until a year or so later that my parents took the plunge and purchased a VCR. Somehow I must have convinced my mom to go along with all of this. As we drove home I sat with my eyes transfixed on the tape's cover, grasped tightly in my little 4 year old hands. It must have felt like an eternity as I waited for my dad to hook up the rented VCR. I'm sure that I was far to concentrated on thoughts of what I would soon be watching than to notice the inevitable string of cuss words, which my dad would shout as he tried to hook VCR up. At last the family sat down and I enjoyed, for the first time, Star Wars Return of the Jedi. Most likely after the movie I immediately ran to my room to play with the Jabba the Hutt Action Playset. Or maybe I ran off to the back yard to pretend I was Luke Skywalker, complete with wiffle ball bat as a lightsaber. Regardless, this was a huge moment in my childhood. Something that only further fueled the fires of my Star Wars obsession, which lives on to this day. And yes, consequently the first Star Wars movie I ever saw was the last one, in order of start to finish.