Cash . . . I Am Your Father

I have found that with my College Comp 2 class, especially, they learn best when I do the assignment right along with them as a model.

Here is the short APA intro paper I wrote with them.  I spared you the pain of the cover page and abstract though.

The topic was choose one concept or event or thing that impacted your life.  Then write a personal history of your relationship with it using one source.

Here is my attempt . . .

Cash . . . I Am Your Father

            For anyone male who was born in the ‘70’s, Star Wars symbolizes childhood.  And what’s not to love about it?  It has elements of classical mythology, good triumphs over evil, there is not a nude scene in the entire series, and . . . the toys!  For me, that was where Star Wars had the greatest impact.

         National Geographic.  Boys Life.  Art books.  Collier’s Encyclopedias.  Thesarus.  First Dictionairy.  Finger Paints.  Wood Burning Kit.  Games.  and so on.

I rarely remember the TV even being on at Granny’s.  It should have been.  It was large, compared to ours and in color.  The TV we had in my room was still black and white.  In fact, Barb can remember looking forward to going over during the Holidays and watching the Ten Commandments, all four hours, on the color TV.

         Finally, I begged Granny to let me watch Star Wars which was airing on HBO.  Not that she’d ever pay for such a thing, but rather it was part of a special where they offered a week of free HBO to entice viewers.  I was ready to use this to my full advantage.  Granny relented and watched me mimic the entire film with my action figures.

         So that it, she said nonplussed. 

         It was great.  I said as I made away in my X-Wing fighter from the destroyed death star, which really doubled as her old foot rest for the chair.

         “So what happens next?”

         “Nothing.  That’s it.  The movie is over.”

         “I know the movie is over, but the story isn’t.”

         “Yes, it is.”

“Why?  Because some us tells you it?  Because the movie has ended?  Why don’t you make up the rest of the story on your own?”

         “Like what?”

“Well, the Dark knight with the voice of James Earl Jones . . .”

         “Darth Vadar.”

         “Okay.  He survived.  Now I’m sure he is going to want revenge on the Rebels for destroying his space station.”

         Whoa.  That was good.

         “He was left twirling around in his fighter.”

         “His Tie Fighter” I said, hoisting my toy replica up.

“Okay, so what is he going to do?”  She said seizing the toy from me and turning it end over end.

“I don’t know.”

         “What about Luke and Hand Solo.”

         “Han, Granny.  Han Solo.”

         She was on to something here.  I didn’t have to just re-enact the same scenes over and over as I had about 8 thousand times over the past four months.

From that moment on, I rarely finished a movie.  By then my mind would be so keyed up to take liberties with the story, that I would be bored by the second act and off acting out my version of the movie and how it should end.

And now, flash forward 35 years, and here I am about to share my Star Wars fascination with my son, Cash, who is just a little younger than I was when Granny ignited my imagination with the simple question of, “What happens next?”

The fact that J.J. Abrams has been tapped to helm the seventh film of the series (we won’t bring up the God awful prequels), this only bodes well for Star Wars fans.  When Cash and I watched the Youtube clip, posted by Abrams, illustrating the fact that the Millennium Falcon will appear in the new film (Derschowitz, 2014).

As we watched it through its conclusion, Cash saw a clip in the side bar of the climax of The Empire Strikes Back.

“Dad!” He begged, “Dad! Click that one!”

And so, with Cash perched in my lap, we watched, yet again, the climax of the film.  Cash was on the edge of his seat, well, my lap actually, as he waited for Darth’s most famous words of all time . . . “Luke, I am . . . your faaaaatherrrr.” 

It was at that moment that Cashed reached for his constant companion, a Lego light saber he pilfered from a trip to my room.  He looked up at me and gave me that smile that just melts my heart.

I knew what I had to do, what he wanted me to do.

I held out my right hand, wrist up.

Cash sliced it with his light saber.

I feigned pain, just as Luke does in the film.

“Dad,” Cash began in his deepest voice, “I am . . . your faaatherrr!”

Well, he doesn’t quite have the plot structure and father son relationship between Luke and Vadar down just yet.

But he has time.

References

Dhershcowitz, J. (2014, September 19). J.J. Abrams reveals "Star Wars" Millennium

Falcon. In CBS News. Retrieved October 13, 2014.