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You and I likely belong to a not-so-exclusive club. If you read GeekDad, you're probably a parent and of the age that grew up during the Star Wars era. Specifically, when the series was about hope, rather than menace. It was a time when after-school afternoons, countless conversations, and daydreams were dominated by play, talk, and thoughts about smugglers, Jedis, and all manner of strange creatures from the deepest reaches of space.
Like each of us, Star Wars has changed a lot since those days. The movies may or may not be a part of your life today, but more than likely it's something you've thought about as a parent. How will you share Star Wars with your kids? (We have a theory on that!) Will they enjoy the original trilogy as much as you? Will you even bother to show them Episodes 1-3? What if they *gulp* like them better?
These are just a few of the dilemmas Gib Van Ert faced when he first became a father. "Having a son got me thinking about my own boyhood, which Star Wars dominated completely," says Van Ert. "I wanted to share my love of the original story with him, but I felt no connection at all to the new Star Wars of the last 15 years. Talking to friends and colleagues, I started to see how many of them felt the same way. It made me want to tell my own Star Wars story, knowing there are so many men my age who have experienced the ups and downs of Star Wars in similar ways."
Van Ert, a lawyer by trade, writes the wonderful blog This Sort of Thing that examines all kinds of Star Wars things in and around daily life. He has also written a great little memoir about life as a boy with Star Wars and his trials as an adult with his boyhood fascination. A Long Time Ago: Growing Up With and Out of Star Wars is a short account, broken into four chapters: Star Wars, Empire, Jedi, and Prequels, with a prologue and epilogue bookending the whole thing.
The book is written quite well and is a quick and enjoyable read. Like the memoir from GeekDad's John Booth, Collect All 21, A Long Time Ago caused memories to come roaring back as quickly as a Tatooine farm boy flying down a Death Star trench. From the memories of first seeing Star Wars (only later given the numbered nomenclature Episode IV: A New Hope) to playing with action figures and playsets like the Imperial Attack Base to fast food collectibles, Van Ert covers it all.
Reading through the pages, I found myself smiling and nodding my head along with Van Ert's memories, which were incredibly similar to mine even though I experienced them half a continent away. However, that's not to say he doesn't have some personal observations in this thoughtful narrative, like when he cataloged his complaints about the theatrical re-release of the original trilogy:
Van Ert does a good job of cataloging the joy of watching Star Wars, Empire and Jedi when they first came out. He also, unfortunately, captures the pain of the interminably long wait for the next movie or tidbit of trivia. We were much younger then and the way movies (and information) got to us were much different than they are now.
At the end of it all, they are just movies. But for people like you and me, they meant a lot more; each film was a meaningful mile marker on our childhoods. A Long Time Ago captures those memories and transports you back to the living room floor, when the shag carpet was the Dagobah swamp and the gap between the couch cushions was the Death Star trash compactor. These are times worth revisiting and this memoir helps to bridge the gap. If you'd like to revisit a galaxy far, far away, give A Long Time Ago a look. As Van Ert's daughter says, "It's a good story, uh?"
Disclosure: GeekDad received a review copy of this book.
