Monday, May 04, 2015

May the Fourth Be With You

Speaking of being a sentimentalist, as I was earlier, I was reminded today that Judy and the kids and I saw Star Wars the day it opened in Brownwood, Texas, all those years ago.  Not long afterward we were in Abilene, walking around in a mall, when I noticed that someone had Star Wars T-shirts on sale.  Judy didn't want one, but Angela, Allen, and I did.  You know where this is headed, right?  Sure enough, I still have mine, the original from 1977, and there it is in the photo, still looking good.

16 comments:

Cap'n Bob said...

Do you really keep it on a hanger?

mybillcrider said...

Sadly, yes.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Hey, I keep my T-shirts on hangars too.

This just confirms the shoe story.

Jeff

Deb said...

The weird thing is, I have absolutely no memory of "Star Wars" when it first came out, but I was all over "Saturday Night Fever" and "Close Encounters."

My oldest t-shirt is from 1985--Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA tour. I also have an Oingo Boingo t-shirt from about 1987. Haven't worn either in 25+ years, but can't bear to part with them.

mybillcrider said...

I haven't worn that one since 1977, and I probably wore it only once than. But it's too tied up with memories to part with.

Mike Stamm said...

I don't know if I still have any of my original STAR WARS shirts--I grew out of them (and not in a good way) a long time ago, though I might be able to wear them again now. In 1977 I worked for a local fantasy/SF bookstore, where we bought (authorized) transfers and sold our own SW T-shirts and a ton of other SW stuff...ah, but I miss the old days. (Kinda sad that I think of 1977 as "the old days," but there it is...

Jeff Meyerson said...

Checking my database I see that we didn't see STAR WARS until August 14, even though it opened Memorial Day weekend in 1977. A year later we saw it a second time with our friends Bob & Sue Adey in Edinburgh.

Jeff

mybillcrider said...

Mike, I have no idea whether that transfer was authorized.

Jeff, I'm surprised you waited so long to see the movie.

James Reasoner said...

I didn't see STAR WARS the first day, but I stood in line the second day to see it. Never had a Star Wars t-shirt, though.

Dan said...

So how does it fit these days?

mybillcrider said...

Sure, Dan. It's even a little too big. I cleverly got a Large.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I can't remember any reason why we didn't see it until August. I do remember seeing JAWS the day it opened in 1975. It was the last day of school and we went straight from school to the theater. When we came out (around dinnertime) I was shocked to see a huge line all the way down through the mall, the first indication of how huge it would be.

June 20, 1975.

Jeff

mybillcrider said...

When we saw Star Wars, there was no line, and the theater wasn't anywhere near full. We went to a matinee, though, and it was Brownwood, after all.

Ed Gorman said...

This is treasure, Bill. Truly.

Cap'n Bob said...

I may have my Thirty Seconds Over Winterland t-shirt circa 1974. A friend got them from the Jefferson Airplane's headquarters in S.F.

Cap'n Bob said...

Correction, it's a tank top. I have a photo of me in it that I ran on TBT last year.