Toronto [FFarchive] Star Wars Memories

TragicLad
Jedi Knight (Moderator) posted 05-21-2000 02:34 PM
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This is a little thing I wrote on how I came to the grand world of Star Wars and ended up sitting on a sidewalk for two weeks to see The Phantom Menace. Hope you all enjoy -- feel free to post your own tales.
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One of my earliest memories is of a colouring book. On the cover, two ships in a desperate dogfight blazed across a field of stars. The inside was filled with drawings of strange places, robots, heroes, and an ominous figure with a blazing sword and a skull-like mask.

I believe I coloured him purple.

** ** **

It was January and the city was paralyzed with snow. The subway system had ground to a halt and the plows were getting stuck in side streets. My employers, not wanting to battle their way into work themselves, called me in the morning and informed me that I had the day off.

And so I spent the good part of the morning sipping a coffee and leisurely perusing my way through assorted USENET groups.

While skimming through one of the Star Wars groups, I happened to chance upon the following:

"In Todays Toronto Star.. There was an article about Starwars Ep 1, and more or less, the fans in general and the anticipation for the movie"

The article was all about these folks in LA who were planning to line up a month in advance. Apparently, a similar line was gearing up in Toronto.

"Lord," I thought to myself. "These people are nuts. Don't they realize that they can just order tickets over the phone?"

But I followed the link regardless.

** ** **

The first thing I ever stole was a Star Wars action figure. My mother had dragged my sister and I along with her as she did the shopping. Having plunked us into the miniscule toy section at the Canadian Tire, she was free to pick up the assorted items on my father's list.

My sister had decided she was going to spend some of her hard earned allowance, a crisp, new two-dollar bill, on an action figure. I don't even remember which one it was that she bought. All I remember is the insane jealousy that she would soon have a Star Wars guy to play with, and I had nothing. As mother came to collect us, I snatched the first Star Wars guy that came my way and tucked it under my shirt. It wasn't until she was packing me into the car that she noticed me beaming over my newly acquired Star Wars guy, Snaggle Tooth.

My mother, mortified that HER child had started down the criminal path, marched me back to the store. Amidst lectures of prison life, tales of mothers passing away due to grief over their hoodlum sons and a brief warning of Santa's wrath - it was made clear that I was to return the toy and apologize to the store. It took a brief while to clear things up - the sales clerk thought we wanted to exchange an item, which she absolutely refused to do without a receipt. Finally, a manager was brought about. Further lectures of prison, of mother's hearts breaking, and the ire of a normally jolly fellow from the North Pole. Snaggle Tooth reclaimed his place on the sales rack. Mother decided that I was satisfactorily back onto the straight and narrow path, and that there was no need to inform my father. She was right, though. Aside from a package of cocktail umbrellas that I swiped a month or two later, I never again applied the five-finger discount.

I had yet to actually watch a Star Wars movie.

** ** **

Normally, I use my real name when on the net.

I just never saw the point of hiding behind some cute nickname. Friends and family regaled me with tales of kooks who tracked down and stalked people on the internet. I just never saw the point.

But when I went to register for the Countingdown Star Wars forum, I found that about a hundred others went by my same name. Not wanting to be stuck with a lengthy number after my name... "are you JohnDoe2342? No, I'm JohnDoe2432." ...I decided to go with a nickname that some of my comic book friends had dubbed me with, "Tragic

 

I remember when a dump truck drove past my house, when I was younger, it was the greatest day of my life.

 

Wow, you had a dump truck drive by your house? Cool.