Archives for posts with tag: Star Wars

The Moms and a Galaxy Far Far Away

July 7, 2022 //
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In Summer 1977, I was a 31 year old mom with four children ages 9, 7, 4 and 1 1/2, three girls and a boy. I read about a movie that was getting big audiences. This was a time when I had to hear about it from a newspaper article because there was no entertainment news, internet, social media. Anyway, we went to see it and fell in love. A “Star Wars” family was born.

Before we got our first VCR, my friend got one and I had her record “Star Wars” when it came out on HBO, the only way you saw movies at home then. I also had her record “Emmit Otter’s Jugband Christmas,” but that’s another story. We soon got a VCR, which cost $1,000 and was a combo VCR/video camera. I can’t even begin to explain how all of that worked, but we were kind of ahead of everyone. The main thing was that the family was able to watch “Star Wars” over and over.

And then came the toys. Oh my. My youngest daughter tells me now that she asked for them and I told her she could play with her brother’s, but I don’t have that memory (selective on my part). Anyway, we had them all, I’m sure. My sister lived a block away and had two boys around the ages of my youngest kiddos, so we were always on the watch for the newest characters. There wasn’t the convenience of online shopping, so we just relied on word of mouth between moms or ads in the paper. However we knew, we knew. I would take the kids to school and drive to a neighboring town with the promise of finding some figure. We collected either the packaging of the characters of cereal boxtops to send off for exclusive figures. Whew.

At Christmas and on birthdays, my son got the toys. I was the one who raced to the stores to get them, then put them together and pasted all the little stickers in place, which included all the instrument boards in the space vehicles. They were tiny and you had to get them on in one try or they tore or went on crooked. There were a few of those.

From then on, I spent a lot of time picking up toys, trying to match tiny guns with the right character, keeping from breaking anything as I stepped through the floor of my son’s room. As my daughter says, these were toys that were played with. They took them outside in the leaves and dirt, built little Star Wars empires all over the yard and house. As each of the three original films was released, there were more things to find. I took it as a Mom Challenge – like it was part of my job description. My oldest daughter’s 12th birthday party was taking her friends to see whichever film came out that year. We were all into it.

We had no clue that all of this would become a huge deal, that those toys would be collectible. We didn’t keep them in their packages stored away with the first ones. As my son grew older, he did have some of the newer ones. The kids grew up and the toys were put away, but they were kept. My daughter-in-law remembers seeing the Millennium Falcon in a place of prominence when she was dating my son. She did stay with him, thank goodness.

Time went on, the kids grew up and married and had their own children, my son died of cancer at 35, and the toys were in bins in my garage. My eight grandchildren (6 boys and 2 girls) are huge fans of everything Star Wars. I remember when the first movies were re-released in the theaters for the first time and sitting with my oldest daughter and her husband while she was pregnant with her oldest son. I’m sure our excitement was absorbed into the womb.

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Parents and kids watch every new variation, as do I. I’m not into all of the offshoots, but I’ve certainly been a fan of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett, and Obi Wan Kenobi.

This summer, my son’s 12 1/2 year old daughter and I were at an antique show in a small town. I asked her if she saw anything and she said she found some Darth Vader things she liked. I looked at them and told her we weren’t going to buy them because we had them at home. A couple of days later, she and I pulled some tubs out of the garage to open for the first time in however long. I spread all of the things on my dining room table and invited the family to come see.

My granddaughter’s favorite was the Darth Vader carrying case with original figures (although their guns are spread around)

My own favorite has always been the Stormtrooper transport that had different sounds. One was a stormtrooper saying, “There’s one! Set for stun!” Another one was R2D2 sounds.

Some of the original pieces, minus a few parts, are the Millennium Falcon and the Jawa transport that moved.

We found various critters and vehicles

There was most of Jabba the Hutt’s scene

I put all the loose characters, accessories and weapons in bowls. The kids knew who a lot of them were and my daughter could even match a few of the weapons.

You have to understand that my grandkids, besides the 12 1/2 year old, range from 20-25 and it was fun to see them and their parents having fun seeing the original toys from the 1970s. After a week or so, I had to pack them back up, trying to keep the parts together as I could. There is another tub from years later that has dozens of characters still in their packaging. We didn’t get into those.

I told my granddaughter I would keep the Darth Vader case and figures out so she could visit them and I personally kept the Stormtrooper transport for myself. One of my grandsons thinks he can help me get the sounds working again. We’ll try because I would love to hear it again.

I’m 76 now and looking back over 45 years of being a Star Wars Mom, as well as a fan. Here’s to the generations of moms (and dads) who have lived in this wondrous world with their families. It’s a fun place to go.

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Categories Entertainment, Family, Memories

Gifts from the Garage

July 2, 2021 //
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My only son, my youngest child of four, died ten years ago at the age of 35 after a long battle with cancer. He left us memories, his wonderful wife and his daughter, who was 15 months old. I’ve written about how it feels in the years after you lose a child, but it’s always different.

One of my grandsons was available to help me, although it was a very hot, humid day, so we tackled a little bit of the stuff in my garage. There were four shelves that were full of my son’s things, but I didn’t know if some of them were just things he collected when my mother or his father died or what was in the containers. We started pulling them out and found all kinds of treasures that warm a mother’s heart.

There was a plastic box with clothes and my college age grandson grabbed an old fanny pack and a red corduroy lined hat with flaps. If there was one thing my son had, it was his own style along with a vast knowledge of everything pop culture. He collected vintage clothing and lunch boxes and Scottish things and whatever caught his fancy. His old Star Wars toys are in other boxes and he would know the name of every character to this day. The original was his first movie when he was about a year and a half and all of it was such a huge part of his life. I also have his Lego blocks, having stepped over them and picked them up for years.

There’s a box out there with photos and school papers and notebooks that I just closed up for another day. I did move it from a cardboard box to a plastic container. Here are some of the other items we discovered in our archaeological garage dig:

There was a big box with his teddy bear collection. Again, he would know all the names. There was the little panda we got when we visited the pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. when they had first arrived in the USA. There was the bear that he posed with in his one year photo. There were some other animals and puppets that actually came from the gift shop I owned when he was in high school and college. And this one was on top:

I needlepointed this for him when he was about three or four years old. His father was a sailor in the Navy, so it was a special bear for many reasons. He’s on my bed for the moment.

There were several books that he loved from his childhood. He didn’t have our copy of “Where the Wild Things Are,” his favorite, but he had taken this one that I must have read hundreds of times.

There were magazines from pop culture, such as a People magazine with Jerry Garcia on the cover along with others that are probably collector’s items today. There was an anthology from Tulsa Public Schools that I swear I had never seen with this published poem of his.

I now have a sealed valentine box of chocolates with Elvis to make me smile. The fact that they are Russell Stover chocolates is also fun since those were his father’s favorites.

I will sit down on days when I want to go back and learn more about my son and explore his drawings and writings. He tended to doodle, which his father did and his daughter does, in his notes, although most of his notebooks seem to be only used for a few pages, which matched what his attention span was. There is so much to explore.

One of the big pieces was an art project from his high school days. I think he was President of the school Art Club. Anyway, it was a big open box with lots of strips of film clipped to the sides. I had my grandson throw it in the dumpster that my son-in-law and daughter across the street were filling from their garage. A piece of plaster had dropped out of it and, when I picked it up, I realized that it was a plaster cast of the bottom part of my son’s face. This took me a minute because my son’s face had changed due to the treatment he received for the cancer he had in his mouth. I took it inside and my grandson threw the rest of the project away. I had seen other bits of plaster still in there, but didn’t look. Now I got curious and had my son-in-law climb into the dumpster and retrieve the plaster pieces. What we found were a complete face along with a sculpted piece of it. Pretty amazing. I have taken the pieces to be framed, but here they are.

I’ve always said that one of the nicest things to find is a photo of a lost loved one that you had never seen before. It’s like getting a piece of them back. I’d say that our little bit of cleaning in the garage brought me more pieces of my son than I realized were on the shelves. It seems there is a reason I sentimentally keep so many things that others throw out without a thought.

Now that I know what’s out there, I know I will return to the boxes to dig through papers and objects and recover little memories and new knowledge of who my son was and what his impact was on so many. It’s so comforting to know he can return to us through our memories and these pieces of him. I wish you had known him. I’m glad to know there is more for me to learn about him. We all miss him.

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Categories Uncategorized

Random Shopping Thoughts

October 21, 2015 //
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When I’m shopping alone, I often go into a zone wandering around the aisles, thinking random thoughts. Here’s some from yesterday.

I just want a gingerbread mix. When did we get so many kinds of cake mix? Where is the gingerbread? Don’t tell me they don’t make it any more. (I finally found a box of good old Betty Crocker gingerbread) What do people in foreign countries think when they see all this stuff?IMG_8670Look at all the kinds of Oreos. I remember when there were just plain Oreos. Wow. Move along quickly. I love Oreos. (Didn’t buy any)IMG_8671Moving to Sam’s Club…The Force is with us. Why didn’t I buy Disney stock? This is pretty cute actually.IMG_8639IMG_8640I can’t wait for the new movie! How fun. (Flashes of Star Wars throughout my children’s lives) Who can resist R2D2?IMG_8641‘Tis the season. Which season? Reminds me of my days in retail when I had Christmas merchandise stacking up before Halloween. (Smiled to myself)IMG_8648More Frozen merchandise. My granddaughter will be thrilled. What a goldmine that was for Disney…why didn’t I buy Disney stock?IMG_8644Wow! I thought I was cutting edge when I got my Apple Watch. Now there’s a kid’s version of smart watch and GoPro. Already. Amazing technology for these kids today.IMG_8642Oh! How many Star Wars toys and Legos have I picked up in my life? Wouldn’t my son love this one? Sigh.IMG_8643Here’s the Frozen/Star Wars mix yet again. I can’t believe my six year old granddaughter doesn’t like Star Wars. Where did her gene pool get mixed up on that one? How can I convince her you can like both? IMG_8649Books, books. Move along, Karen. You have so many books at home to read and not enough time. How in the world am I supposed to watch all the movies and TV, read all the books and keep moving more at the same time? Do I need a treadmill at home? Where would I put it? I should concentrate on traveling more. Really.IMG_8651What is this? I guess it would be the healthiest thing ever but how do you eat it? Do you cook it or add it to something? Sounds blah tasting. Too much.IMG_8645Interesting marketing choice here. Put the tempting holiday goodies across from the latest fit snacks. Should I try the popcorn? No, I like Skinny Pop. Leave it at that.IMG_8646IMG_8647Again with the marketing placement. Neither one grabs me, thank goodness.IMG_8653IMG_8654Good grief. Healthy or not? Actually looks good, but not today. IMG_8652When is our weather going to change so we can wear our fall stuff? It’s 80 degrees today. I’m ready for sweatshirts. But it is nice not to have to freeze at the football games. Wonder what the weather will be this weekend? What am I going to wear to the games? Will I be warm, cold or wet? It changes all the time. Bedlam’s coming soon. IMG_8650Amazing how much time I can kill in a store. Stopped to talk to three friends and ended up with a mixed cart of stuff I needed. At least I got some walking in. And so go my days…

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Categories Reflections

Waiting for Star Wars

June 12, 2015 //
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Here we are, almost 40 years later, waiting for the next Star Wars movie to open.  When the original was released, I read about this phenomenon in the newspaper and took the family to see it.  My youngest, my son, was only about 1 1/2 years old, so it was his first movie.  I remember spending part of the movie walking around the back of the theatre with him, little knowing how much it would affect his and our lives.  From then until now, I can’t remember a time that Star Wars wasn’t around me – or under my feet.

There were the movies, anxiously awaited by the entire family.  The first thing we recorded when we got a VCR was Star Wars.  I still have the tape somewhere.  And the toys!  Packed in my garage are the figures and the tiny guns that I picked up so many times that I can’t count.  The toys I waited in line for, the special figures only available from some cereal or by mailing off something.  Some are stored in the big Darth Vader carrying case that’s out there somewhere.  There’s the Millennium Falcon and the At-At and the Storm Troop Carrier (it actually spoke when you pushed the button) and planes and one of those big snow creatures they rode and no telling what else.  My son collected lunch boxes and his Star Wars box is a prize.  Later, we had Star Wars talking figures and large collector figures and whatever else came along.  By this time, my son was in college and my daughters were marrying guys who had also grown up with Star Wars.  One of my sons-in-law has his figures intact with their guns, packed away for safe-keeping.  Nothing to snicker about either.  This is important stuff.

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They re-released the first three episodes in theaters when my oldest daughter was pregnant with her first son.  She could feel him jumping as we watched our favorite scenes.  Another generation has come along and all eight of my grandkids are familiar with the stories and the characters.  I was at a 2 year old’s birthday party, a child named after my son, and he knew Darth Vader in his limited vocabulary.  Good job, Dad!  Here’s my son with one of my grandsons many years ago, passing down the fun…

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So here we go again and I couldn’t be more excited.  The next series will start and the comparisons to the old ones will be rampant on social media and we’ll all be swept into this wonderfully fun world again.  Last week, I traveled to Oakland, California and was amused to hear all the references around the Bay area.  First, I spotted this book in a gift shop.  Where was this series when I needed it for my kid?

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Then we drove by the entrance to George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, pointed out by a local.  She remarked that the woods we were passing through were the setting for the Battle of Endor (she didn’t say that and I had to look it up).  You know the one where the rebels and the Ewoks fight the stormtroopers in the woods.  Of course, you know.  That great scene where they rode those fast things that raced through the trees.  Anyway, I could see what inspired it and where it was filmed (except for the computer stuff, of course). It looked like this area…

DSC_0167I learned that the cranes that we kept passing on the way across the Oakland Bay Bridge into San Francisco were the inspiration for many of the big machines in Star Wars.  After all, George Lucas passed them all the time.  It makes sense.  From then on, I tried to capture the images as I was driven by them.  Can’t you see them marching across the movie screen?

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I guess I’m getting too excited.  There are still months to go and more trailers to entice us and more products to show up in the stores and I know that we will all be in that theatre, waiting for the music and the opening and the familiar heroes.  I’m excited that there’s a new generation getting their own episodes and new parents walking around picking up the beloved toys and just crazy fun for this old grandmother to share.  Silly…

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Categories Entertainment, Family, Friends, Memories, Photography, Places, Reflections, Travel