Tuesday, 24 May 2005 - 1:23 PM CDT

Of course, we ALL want to know about the 3/4. I think I can guess because we were all young and wild. But I do want to hear it from the horse's mouth. (Did the film break? Was there a fire alarm?)

I was in Europe that summer, and I can't remember if I saw Star Wars after I returned or before I left. Must have been after I returned, because I can remember the tremendous hype over the movie, with an issue of Time magazine almost wholly devoted to it. Star Wars: Nobody had ever seen anything like it, the sheer daring imagination, the taking of old cinematic formulas and layering them over with something entirely new and amazing. I believe that the mid-70's was the zenith of the 20th Century. We had Starsky & Hutch and the Dukes of Hazzard coexisting in the same society. Oh, I suppose I look back with rose-colored glasses, but I can't help but miss the sense of adventure life had then. For those who aren't old enough to remember the 70's, it all turned in the fall of 1978, with Jim Jones and Guyana (which affected us the same way 9-11 did: shock, disbelief, horror), and continued turning toward the dark side with the election of Ronald Reagan.