Vintage AT-AT Driver.
Vintage Lobot.
In the sometimes-treacherous waters of nostalgia, nothing beats going home. And not like the ‘Honey I’m home!’ home. I’m talking about the ‘Back to that place you left long ago when you finally found you had the wings to fly the coupe’ home.
And that, my friends, is exactly where you find me for a long week’s stay. Back home at my parents’ house to enjoy some family time and celebrate my dad’s birthday.
I’m lucky that my parents are both still alive, still married to each other, and still living in the house where I was raised. This is of course the same house that from 1977 to 1983 was ground zero of my love affair with Star Wars action figures.
So its an auspicious experience for me to come back now to the exact places that I played with my Star Wars toys decades ago. Here I was a kid; lazy and… well, really just lazy. Nothing to do but create 4″ plastic adventures all the live-long summer days.
So what I’m driving at is this: these pictures in their own way document the earliest origins of this blog.
The first image is from the basement of my parents’ house, the ideal spot to escape the punishing temperatures of a Milwaukee heat wave. It was also a place where I could set up my toy dominion wherever and however I wanted, without fear of competing interests from siblings or parents. This was my subterranean paradise.
The second image is from a neighborhood creek. On a typical summer day my pals and I would be there from about 9am to 5pm racing action figures down the water current on makeshift rafts of sticks and reeds. We took it for granted that everyone had it that good.
My only regret is not planning this a little better. Had I sparked the idea earlier I’d have brought a larger array of vintage figures with me. Lobot and the AT-AT Driver just happened to be in my bag only as backup distractions for my 2-year old daughter in the event of a mid-flight meltdown. I’m happy to say it never came to that. She’s growing up.