What a sad coincidence — the very same day I learn that the Muppets are going to be honored with a set of official U.S. postage stamps, I also learn that Jerry Juhl, one of the men who made the Muppets into the icons we all know and love, has died.
I see in the paper this morning that another local landmark, the old Geneva Steel mill, has fallen in the name of progress.
Now, before you start thinking my unquenchable sense of nostalgia has finally gotten the better of me and caused me to abandon all sense of perspective, let me state for the record that I’m not especially sentimental about decaying old industrial sites. Geneva was ugly when it was in operation, filling the skies of Utah County with orange haze and dumping god-only-knows into Utah Lake, and it was twice as ugly after it ceased operation and commenced to rotting. In addition, it was located in the next valley south of mine, so it’s not like I was seeing it every day and acquiring the affection that comes through constant familiarity. Still, it was familiar, if not intimately so, and its demolition is just one more step in the on-going process that is erasing the landscape I grew up with.
I’ve just received word that one of my oldest friends in the world — by which I mean the friends I’ve known for the longest time, not those friends who are actually old — became a father last weekend. Keith Jensen’s daughter Aubrey Elise entered the world on Saturday, June 18, and she and Keith’s wife Danielle came home the following Tuesday. Presumably mother and daughter are both doing fine, and in the photos he e-mailed me, Keith himself looks like a new daddy should — somewhere between busting with pride and wondering what the heck he’s gotten himself into. (Just kidding! Mostly he looks very happy, and I’m happy for him and Danielle.)
It was the springtime of 1980, and the future was bearing down on me like a runaway bantha.
I was ten, the school year was winding down, and very soon the fifth grade would be behind me. So would elementary school. Come fall, I’d be spending my days in that great, fog-shrouded unknown called middle school. I’d been hearing rumors about what I could expect when I got there, and frankly I wasn’t looking forward to it. No one could tell me the point of changing classrooms and teachers multiple times during the day. There were stories about massive amounts of homework. Some said they held activities where they made you dance with girls. (I was never one of those stereotypical boys who disliked girls on principle, but the thought of dancing filled me with terror.) Then there was the transportation issue. My elementary school was within a stone’s-throw of my house, and I’d always walked to and from home; now I’d have to take the bus, one of those big, rattling, smelly yellow things that you always had to worry about missing. And what was this nonsense about having to take a shower… with other boys… at school? Revolting!
Thankfully, though, I had things to distract me from my middle-school anxieties. There was a whole three months of summer vacation coming up, and with them was the promise of all the bike-riding, Slurpee-swilling, and treehouse comic-book reading I could stand. My parents were planning to take me and my cousin Stacey on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon as soon as school was over. And, oh yeah, there was a new Star Wars movie about to premiere.
I could hardly wait.
I was seven years old in the summer of 1977, the prime age of susceptibility to a story featuring young, swashbuckling heroes, strange-looking creatures, and scary — but not too scary — villains. (See also Potter, Harry, modern kids and.) I’m sure I must’ve seen a few movies on the big screen before then — I vaguely recall a couple of early-70s live-action Disney films about people in really bad polyester knits — but the first truly memorable film I saw in a theater…
Wait. Stop.
I’m not going to continue with that thought. My experience of seeing Star Wars for the first time couldn’t have been much different than a lot of other people’s. We were all kids, we’d never seen anything like it, we stood in lines that went around the block (literally, in my case — I saw the film at the long-lost Centre Theatre in Salt Lake; there was no lobby to speak of, and the only place to queue up was outside, on the street), big spectacle, big excitement, tiny little brains melting, lifelong obsessions forming, blah blah blah.
We were all there, weren’t we? And those of you who weren’t have probably heard about it from someone who was. It was the defining communal experience of our generation, at least until the towers fell.
But here’s the thing that was unique about my personal experience: I didn’t actually want to see Star Wars. I had no interest in it whatsoever, and, in fact, I remember being frightened of it. I don’t recall why, but something in the TV ads gave me a major case of the willies.
My mom is out of town this weekend, so no fancy brunches or breakfast in bed for her today. I’d still like to do something special for her, though, so I thought maybe I’d give her a little taste of immortality, in blog form, by relating a few anecdotes that may illustrate her innate coolness.
Last night I cancelled my membership with BMG Music Service. It was easy. All I had to do was click one button on the Web site (although the button itself was kind of tricky to find), and the actual decision was a no-brainer, too. I think I’ve bought only one CD from them in the last eighteen months or so, and paging through the monthly catalog was kind of like looking at a stranger’s yearbook: lots of pretty young faces, but the names mean nothing to me. Hell, I don’t even listen to music much anymore — I can go months without turning on my stereo, and I haven’t been really aware of what’s current since the days of Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness when I clicked that “cancel” button. It was a genuine end-of-an-era moment, seeing as I’ve been a member of BMG since before compact discs were the standard music format. Back when I joined, BMG was the RCA Record and Tape Club, and before that I was a member of the Columbia Record and Tape Club. Once upon a time, way back in the glorious, pre-digital ’80s, everybody was a member of the Columbia Record and Tape Club. How could any self-respecting teenager resist the offer of twelve albums for only a penny?
Back in college I shared a couple of classes with a minor-league campus celebrity by the name of John Pecorelli. Unlike most of the people who distinguish themselves enough to stand out from a student body of 25,000, Pecorelli was not an athlete. He gained his notoriety the old-fashioned way, by having a big mouth.
I just heard that Enterprise, the fifth incarnation of the best-known science-fiction series in television history, Star Trek, has been cancelled. I’m not surprised — rumors have been circulating for months that UPN was only stringing the low-rated show along until it hit 100 episodes, which is considered the sweet-spot for syndicated re-run packages. (One hundred eps are optimal for syndication because you can run the show five nights a week without viewers seeing the same ones too frequently. As it is, Enterprise will warp off into the sunset with only 98 episodes, but that’s apparently good enough.)
I’m also not what you would call heartbroken about losing this show. I think I’ve only seen three or four complete episodes and they didn’t move me one way or the other. The sad truth is that I was profoundly indifferent to this version of the Trek concept; I haven’t really considered myself an active Trek fan in years, not since Deep Space Nine wrapped production. But there is one aspect of this story that causes a twinge: after the final episode of Enterprise airs in May, it will be the first time since 1987 that there is no new Star Trek in the offing. No new spin-off series, no big-screen movies. As an idea and a brand name, Star Trek will have finally run its course. The tie-in books and computer games will probably continue for a while, but they’ll eventually peter out as well, and Star Trek will fade into history.
Naturally, the hardcore fanboys are having a hard time accepting the inevitable; there is much speculation on the message boards about a sixth Trek series that will debut after a suitable resting period, five years or maybe even a decade from now. Sorry, guys, but I believe that’s just wishful thinking. It’s over. And you know what? It should be over. It should’ve been over years ago, in my opinion.
Let’s take a break from politics for a moment, shall we?
Does anyone remember Dynamite magazine? This was a fluffy little publication aimed at school kids back in the ’70s. It contained articles about celebrities and the fads of the day, comic strips, humor columns, and “fun stuff” like mazes and crossword puzzles. If I remember correctly, it always came in conjunction with those Scholastic Book Club newsletters from which you could order cheap paperbacks, if you could talk your mom into giving you the money (mine was always a pushover when it came to buying me books). I recall that each classroom received one copy of the mag, which would get passed around until the pages were grease-stained and as soft as an old t-shirt from the constant handling.