My Youngest, Star Wars And "When I Was I Kid..."

One thing I notice more and more as I get older is how often I find myself thinking, "When I was a kid...," or "Back in my day..." I don't know why but I never thought I would be the one to say those things. I always thought I'd be the one hearing them.

I guess that's what happens when you get old.

Tonight, while his two older siblings are out with friends, my youngest chose a video to watch. We don't have a lot of DVDs, but there's a few. He could have picked any number of films. Which one did he end up watching?

Star Wars IV: A New Hope

And I'm a happy papa!

Many of my friends on social media post pictures or little stories of their children voluntarily choosing a geek life. It's heartwarming. It makes one thing we've succeeded as a parent, or at least, partially succeeded. I'd like to think we did something right.

So what does that have to do with "When I was a kid...?"

Good question.

When I was a kid there were two ways to see Star Wars, or any movie. Only two ways. You could either see it in the theater, which is why a film like Star Wars was in the theater for over a year.

The second way to see the show was to wait until it was on one of three channels, ABC, CBS or NBC. That was it. Then came VCRs. However, there was a time between the advent of VCRs and the creation of the video store. Sure, you could record something, but it had to be on TV to do it.

When I was a kid, the very first movie I ever saw that wasn't recorded on TV (and without commercials, a pretty big deal...) was Star Wars. My friend, Steven Peel had an uncle that moved to Utah after having worked in the film industry in California. He had a tape of Star Wars. I thought that was the COOLEST THING! Imagine, watching Star Wars whenever you wanted!

That was the definition of awesome for a teenager in the late 1970s.

My son will never know that awesomeness. He'll never know the feeling in your gut when you have waiting literally for years for that one night when "the movie" will be shown on TV. You talked about it at school and you eagerly waited in front of the television on a Sunday night until the film began.

Back in my day, that's how it was done. And we liked it!