May 2007 will mark thirty years since the original theatrical release of Star Wars. John Booth, who at age six converted his thumbs and index fingers from cowboy shooters to Han Solo-inspired blasters, is raking together his memories of the saga in a series of essays for Field's Edge.The series begins here.

   One of the best things about being the age I was when Star Wars came out was that the world still seemed like a pretty vast place. Details got pretty foggy if you were talking about a place beyond the end of my street or a time further back than about a year and a half. Facts were facts until proven otherwise, stories were taken at face value and not Googled moments after their conclusion to ascertain their validity. 
   Star Wars gave birth to galaxies of conjecture. 
   Rumors flew, for instance, around the whole mystery of the “Episode IV” designation, which, along with stuff like the “Journal of the Whills” reference in the beginning of the Star Wars novel, gave rise to the idea that other Star Wars movies had been made. We’d just never heard of them because we were only little kids, after all. I remember word going around in the fledgling geek community that some movie theater in Kansas City was showing all 12 Star Wars movies. (Kansas City? Twelve? Where did we get this stuff?) 
   No matter. We ate it up and added our own stories to the mix. 
   When I was in first or second grade, I met Darth Vader. He came to the Belden Village Mall and set up shop at the center, in front of the O’Neill’s department store and next to the era’s requisite mall fountain. Like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, minus the blankets of fake grass and snow, and with a couple Stormtroopers flanking him in place of elves. 
   For years, I kept the glossy 8-by-10 publicity photo they passed out, which he signed for me in black magic marker. Just to be clear: This wasn’t James Earl Jones or David Prowse. This was DARTH VADER. And that’s how he signed the picture, there at the mall’s center, a short walk from the Hobby Center store where I’d gotten my first Star Wars figure – Vader, of course. 
   When I got to school and started talking about my meet-and-greet with the Dark Lord, this kid William said he’d seen Darth Vader at a mall, too. 
   Here’s the deal with William: The kid may heave been the only one in our class geekier than me. High, nasal voice, knew how to read words even I couldn’t get (“chameleon” comes to mind). Had, like me, all but memorized the Marvel Star Wars comic adaptation and thus was able to explain things like why Princess Leia didn’t give Chewbacca a medal at the end of the movie. (Because “Few space princesses are that tall.”) Not a bad kid. We used to joke about mixing martinis on the playground. I have no idea why. 
   So William had his own “met Vader at the mall” story, only his went way beyond my handshake and a Darth Hancock. The mall he’d seen Vader at, William explained, had set up an entire Star Wars funhouse. And not only had he met Vader, but he’d actually ridden with the big guy in a replica of his TIE fighter cockpit. And where the front window was, there was a viewscreen showing the trench battle scenes from the movie, and Vader had menacingly told William to push the firing button, which he did, and that had been the shot that killed Luke’s friend Biggs. (Knowing Biggs was a dead giveaway of geekdom in those days, because he wasn’t in the movie. Only someone who’d read the books and comics would know who he was.) 
   I was insanely jealous. Where was this mall? I had to go! Yes, I bought William’s story hook, line and Jawa and probably faithfully spread it around to other Star Wars fans. 
   William’s tale I now chalk up to good-natured enthusiasm. Kevin’s, though ... Kevin was just kind of a jerk. 
   This was a few years later. He rode my school bus and lived about a mile away, which was bike-riding distance, but too far to walk. Obnoxious, mean kid. Example: Near the end of my street growing up was a place we called the creek. Really just the meet-up of three roadside drainage ditches forming a pool probably two feet deep after the heaviest of rains, and maybe ten feet across. Summers, it used to breed frogs in droves, and you could catch a dozen tadpoles just by dipping a bucket in the water. Kevin and I went there one day and he stuck a tadpole on the street and stepped on it, slowly, with the toe of his cowboy boot, until it burst. That stuck with me for longer than I wished. 
   Still, he liked Star Wars, which was something to talk about. (He also liked the Miami Dolphins and wore a teal-and-orange coat in winter.) 
   Sometime after The Empire Strikes Back came out, Kevin and I were on the bus talking about Star Wars toys, and I wondered why there was no Cloud City playset, with something where you could put a Han figure in and turn a knob to get a Carbonite Frozen Solo out the other side. (I was thinking at the time of those old Star Trek toys and their rotating-door “transporter” features.) So Kevin starts talking about a Cloud City set that he saw that had a Carbonite Freezing Chamber and a Torture Chamber – man, Han just didn’t have a good day on Bespin – that would leave three little pin-dents on the chest of your favorite action figure. 
   Kevin must have claimed this belonged to a friend or cousin, because honestly, if he’d said he had it at his house, I’d have gone over and demanded to see it, tadpole murderer or not. (Now that I think about it, I think he had also at some point claimed to have seen a Grand Moff Tarkin action figure. Jerk.)   
   It wasn’t gullibility. It was a belief in mystery and possibility, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss that in these days of endless spoilers and movie countdown websites. 
   Still, there are going to be a few Star Wars television projects coming out in a couple years, and one of my friends knows a guy who’s working on the story developments. And I’ve got a used Star Wars fun house to sell you.    

   Here are the links to the rest of Remembering Star Wars:

Part I: Summer, 1977
Part II: The Droids We Were Looking For
Part III: Perfect Hibernation
Part IV: Into A Larger World
Part V: Collect All 21!
Part VII: A Pack-A-Day Habit

Part VIII: Size Matters Not

Part IX: Along A Different Path

Part X: There is Another

Part XI: Bounty Hunting