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!

When I Was A Kid And Photos...

Man, I LOVE digital photography! Tonight I took so many pictures of the daisies that are growing in our front yard and I could have taken scores more. The cost? Some storage space and electricity. That's all.

As I get older I find myself thinking more and more about my dad. I thought about him as I took these pictures. And what do photographs of flowers have to do with my dad? Good question. My dad loved photography and I wonder what he would think of a camera with more technology in it than existed in the first moon lander, a camera that's available to anyone. He would have LOVED it!

Growing up adults would say to us kids that we lived in amazing times because when they were our age, they didn't have televisions or portable radios/cassette players, or other "modern" gadgets. When my mom was a child she remembers when the family got indoor plumbing and electricity to their home. Televisions and radios were the stuff of science fiction to them back then.

I never thought I'd be one of those people who could possibly say that things were so different when I was a child, but I definitely can. When I was a child we only had three TV channels, and I watched them on a television that my father built (told you he loved gadgets...). 

When I was a kid, once a movie left the movie theater, there was no way to see it again until it made its way to one of the three before-mentioned TV channels--no VCRs, no DVRs, nothing.

When I was a kid gas cost less than a dollar a gallon and I think it was even close to 50¢ a gallon.

And when I was a kid, we took photos using film, film that needed to be developed and you just prayed the pictures turned out. My, how times have changed...