First Star Wars movie seen & when: A New Hope, fall of 1977.

Extra: A long time ago... I was born. OK, it hasn't been that long. Don't let the gray hairs fool ya. Anyway, I'm originally from a suburb of Chicago called Glenwood, IL. A nice enough place that I probably wouldn't recognize if I went back (ya'know... "progress" and all that). Every August, my family and Aunt's family would take a vacation to Michigan to spend a week on the lake.

In the summer of 1977, while on vacation, I hurt my knee to where I pretty much was confined to the cabin reading old comic books that the "office" had for rainy days. It was here that I developed my love of comics. My "collecting" has grown and dimmed throughout the years, but I'm still a fan. Anyway, my older cousin and some other kids that vacationed the same time we did came back from the movies. I was still stuck reading comics, but I heard them recount this crazy movie they just saw. I just wish I could remember the images that I was forming as they described all these aliens and crazy things in this movie. I had to see it. After we got back, my dad took my to see Star Wars. Not "A New Hope"... just Star Wars.

As crazy as it sounds, I ended up seeing the ending first. Of course I had no idea what the Death Star blowing up meant, but we got there early and I was able to see that part first. I hardly think it spoiled anything as I watched in awe a movie that would weave it's way into my life forever. I was able to see it 5 times over the next year. The first action figure I got (Luke) was on the day of my baseball tryouts. The following year, I came back from vacation to see my room decked out in Star Wars bedding along with ceramic busts of R2-D2 and Darth Vader (which had those blinking multi-colored lights that made all kind of cool effects on the walls).

For the next several years, my collection grew. In 1980, we had a garage sale and the money I made was spent buying an Empire Strikes Back soundtrack (thinking it was a storybook record like the one I had for the first movie). I was disappointed to find out it was all music. It's funny now as I'm such a big fan of all the soundtracks. I think it was sometime after 1983 when I felt it was time to pass my collection down to my brother. He was into GI Joes and He-Man. I later saw my precious figures with their heads switched and basically unusable.

My other obsession, the rock group Rush, was kicking into overdrive along with discovering that kind of music, so I left Star Wars as a child's memory for the time being. In 1987, we moved to northwest Georgia. Over the next 8 years, my love of comics and the dream of one day owning my own comic book store blossomed. I started attending a few of the various cons and also began autograph collecting. It was around 1992 when the LaFayette Science Fiction group was formed. A group of us met after hours in the library and had a blast. This lasted for awhile until the group eventually drifted their separate ways. LaFayette isn't that big, after all. In 1995, I got married to a woman who not only tolerates my little obsessions, but encourages them. Case in point: that same year, my wife kick started my current collection with a bunch of the Orange carded figures she was able to get from another collector at Target. She said the other collector literally took the figures out of his cart to give to her. Of course the guy had everything Target put out, so he could afford to lose a few.

That Christmas, my obsession with collecting began anew. Fast forward to today. I'm still married, have kids (one is even named "Anakin") and live in a nice house in a quiet neighborhood. I have a "computer room" that basically is just a storage room for all my "stuff". The room is lined with autographed pictures, the Star Wars 12" figures and a peg board overflowing with the smaller action figures. The odd stuff rests atop the 20 odd boxes of comics (which I have since quit collecting). The bookshelf holds my concert bootleg collection (mostly Rush) in which I have dedicated an entire website to and yes I actually have a computer in there as well, which is where I spend way too much time at. Star Wars seems to have been with me for most of my life and I don't see it leaving me anytime soon.

Addendum: In 2004, a few of us in the Chattanooga area decided it was high time we had our own Star Wars group. As we grew, my desire to get that Stormtrooper armor I always wanted started becoming a reality. In May 2006, I officially became part of the 501st Legion as TK-4523. Looks like I'm in this fandom for life!