Well, I begged and begged for it and finally on February 12, 1979 (my 9th birthday) I got my Death Star Space Station. My best friend Matt gave me the R5-D4 and Death Star Droid figures and my parents also gave me the Star Wars bed sheets shown underneath the figures. I wore the heck out of those sheets and they faded quite a bit since that photo. I only replaced them when my mom bought me a new set of Star Wars sheets - for Christmas 1997. I kid you not. Yes, I still sleep on that same twin-size bed, however that snazzy shirt is long gone.

Tuesday, October 17 1978

Friday, November 3 1978

In third grade I went to a new school where the workload was a little tougher. Hence, my diary was but one of the daily chores I had to endure as an 8 year old kid. I'm glad now that I did it (and moreso that it survived) because it gives me a glimpse at the world of Star Wars through the eyes of an excited kid before his hardcore collecting days began. My mom always told me that I was blown away when I first Star Wars although I don't remember it.

It's really strange, but of the 7 Star Wars related photos I managed to dig up, 4 of them work in very tightly with the diary entries. We did daily entries but these are the only ones that pertained to Star Wars. Of course this diary was actually a Star Wars spiral notebook, but the cover is long gone now. The back cover still has the Star Wars logo on it though.

Tuesday, November 28 1978

Tuesday, January 2 1979

Christmas Day 1978

That Sears Cantina Adventure Set was something I had to have, as you can see. I remeber looking at the stack of them quite frequently when we would go to the mall. I'm not positive, but I think I wanted it so bad because that was the first availability of those particular figures. Why did I draw Snaggletooth tall and red? I surely can't figure that one out...

Friday, November 17 1978

I flipped when I found that entry about it being "a Star Wars Holiday". This, of course, referred to the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special" that would air on TV for the first and only time that very night. My dad had other plans (unbeknownst to me at the time) and decided that his animal show was more important than my Star Wars special. I barely caught a glimpse here and there of Chewbacca's family (during his commercials) and heard about most of it the next day from my classmates whose fathers evidently didn't watch animal shows. I finally saw the Holiday Special a mere 14 years later for the first time and let me tell you, it was a piece of junk. I think I would have enjoyed it much more as a naive 8 year old.

Monday, October 23 1978

Tuesday, October 31 1978

My first Star Wars Halloween was in 1978 when I went as Darth Vader. I was pretty excited about it as you can read in my diary. Like a Jedi, I even constructed my own lightsaber, however in the photo I'm using it more like walking stick I guess. That's my brother, Tommy, as the well-scary skeleton. He was 4 years old at the time and I remember helping make that mask for him. I don't know why my mom couldn't splurge on a real mask. The other photo of us from 1980 or 1981 (without our masks) when we went to a Halloween carnival at my cousin's school. I remember that it was called "Monster Mash" and there was a Dagobah set-up there. It was complete with a live Yoda who I later found out was a guy of Kenny Baker stature that worked at the local fire station.

Nowadays it's all but a fond memory. And my involvement with Star Wars collecting is infinitely more involved than I could have ever imagined it to be. The kid got bigger, the collection grew proportionally and I still get excited over old Star Wars stuff. Just what happend to me?