Intro to the Space Age
Puck sat down to the breakfast table with an empty Mead notebook and a pen. He began to fill the first sheet with lines of zeros. I had seen him do this before, an attempt to write the biggest number in the world.
“So … are you going to fill the entire notebook with zeros?”
“Yup. AND sevens. AND ones. AND nines. To make the number even bigger.”
Behind him, Yali sat in his high chair making a cheese stick roar at his own nose.
It was Star Wars day. I still remember that one Saturday afternoon maybe twenty years ago when Dad saw the newly released VHS Star Wars trilogy in a Wal-Mart display case and immediately added it to the cart.
He just smiled and told us, “You’re in for a real treat.”
The shiny box was intriguing to me. I’d never heard of Star Wars before, but I was interested. Dad had already inspired in all of us a deep fascination for all things outer space, so if he said it was good, it had to be good.
For three Saturday nights in a row we watched each film in sequential order, ending with what ultimately became my favorite – Return of the Jedi. Although Dad’s favorite was always “The Empire Strikes Back”, because not every story ends completely resolved right away, he told me. Sometimes you have to wait.
My interest in Star Wars couldn’t cast a shadow on Carrie-Bri’s. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker effectively edged her from a pretty exclusive world of cowboys and Indians into the space age. But in my own way, I also followed suit. For a kid who could bike up and down the street imagining other worlds and planets for hours on end, Star Wars was a bit of a revelation for me. Now two decades later, I had a feeling I was in for a similar re-awakening.
Oxbear and Puck were my movie companions of the afternoon, already on their second viewing. They eagerly escorted me to the fancy theater in Wentzville complete with couch-like recliners, reserved seating, and, of course, mounds of buttery popcorn for the boys.
“Please can we get popcorn, Dad? Please!” Puck asked earlier that day before we left.
“I’m not sure about that, son.”
“But, Dad, I start to get a little peckish sometimes.”
They got about halfway through that popcorn as the bee-yellow opening crawl blasted onto the screen – memories of childhood recalled by just five epic notes – and for a couple of golden old school hours, I was ten again.
After pizza with the Silverspoon and South families, we scooped two hyper boys into the back seat for the drive home. When Bach doesn’t calm them down, aggressive Puerto Rican hip-hop does the trick. Go figure.