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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Well
actually it was about 20 years ago' in a town
called LaGrange in northern Indiana. The
year was 1979.1 was 11 years old, and my brother Raff
was 12. Star Wars mania was in full swing and Raff and
I were right in the middle of it. If it had “Star Wars" on
it, it was as good as bought. We had it all: the sheets,
Burger King glasses, wallpaper, bubblegum cards, note
books, posters, puzzles, books, models. We could have
easily and comfortably sustained life just with our Star
Wars paraphernalia: wake up from a wonderful night s
sleep in your C3PO and R2 shrouded bed, change out
of your Star Wars jammies into your ultra cool “Dartlj
Vader Lives" t-shirt, rush downstairs and pour yourself
a brimming Star Wars bowl of C3PO cereal, and then
have a hard day of playing with all those action figures.
Three ounces of perfect plastic pressed into a life-like
graven image of a teen hero, a droid, an evil villain or a
cosmic creature. That’s what I’m talkin' about.
We, of course, had all of them. We had the ships,
too, including the Sears exclusive remote control Jawa
sand crawler. We would stand up all the figures on the
living room’s linoleum floor and play “hit and run.” The
object of the game was, first, to choose who was going
to be the good guys and who was going to be the bad
guys. Then if you were the good guys, you would take
“remote” control of the helm of the sand crawler and
try to “crush the empire” or at least knock over all of
their doll likenesses. If you accidentally hit one of your
own men causing him to fall, it was the other person’s
turn. We had hours of morbid fun running over our
prized possessions.
When w r e got bored with the toys we had, we would
build our own. An empty spool thread would be
transformed into a new robot just by gluing on pieces
from a model kit or fuses from dear ol’ Dad s tool box.
Spaceships could be fabricated from plastic pop bottles
or milk cartons. Virtually anything could become part
of the Star Wars galaxy.
One day we were upstairs in our parent’s bedroom,
farting around with our plastic pals, when were over
come by the power of the Force to do a bit of snooping.
It was almost as if the ghostly voice of Obi Wan was
saying "check the top drawer of the dresser, young Jedi!”
Like a beacon, something called to us. Do we dare
look? But of course! We opened the drawer and pushed
back mom's underthings and... BAM! There it was:
a sleek ship that had to be the fastest in the galaxy. A
one-man fighter that could penetrate the Death Star’s
defenses and save our beloved heroes.
We looked at each other with excitement in our eyes.
We had hit pay dirt! We pulled out the rebel rocket
to have a closer look at this marvelous addition to the
rebel alliance.
“Oh, cool, the back comes ofB” We didn’t know it at
the time but we were being seduced by the dark side.
We unscrewed the end, took out the two C batteries
and found that Han Solo fit perfectly inside. From all
the excitement, we forgot about how and where this
posh projectile was* obtained. We had to share our find
with someone. We galloped down the stairs, past our
dad stretched out on the couch watching "Hee-Haw”
and straight to the utility room, w r here our mom was
folding up our Star Wars sheets. There was about to be
a great disturbance in the Force!
"Look at our space ship!” we proudly squealed
in unison. It was a dark time for the rebellion as
mom looked up with a surprised then sinister look.
Immediately her mouth opened, and the angry words
“Put that back, and stay out of my room!” came pouring
out.
Heads hung low, the ship was docked in the top
drawer, never to be seen again. We returned to our
room, put Han back in the carrying case, and sat down
to play Asteroids.
“I bet that crummy ship couldn’t penetrate the Death
Star’s defenses anyway” Raff said.
"Bet it wouldn’t penetrate nothing," I returned.
Ryan Hall
slackpole’s clip art caption contest
“Wait a minute—where's the part about making sure people have access to automatic
weapons?"
“We took that part out Who would be stupid enough to think we would ever allow that?'
■
—Andrew Lentwi
Do you want to contact your legislators but don’t know where to startf
Join us for an
Ivocacy Training
January 25, 2011
12-2 p.m.
ACCA,135 Hoyt Street, Athens
Find out who your legislators are, how to
contact them and more!
K XV 4 -• ; •• •
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vACCA 5
a on • V
it'ivw. accaging. org
(706) 549.4850
'Refreshments will i* served. Those traveling hy bus art o&giMe for reimbursement. *Aise: Don’t forget to sign uf>for Senior
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