It took me a couple moments to get what I was seeing — the girl with the “Star Wars” tattoo.
They’ve become so commonplace, tattoos. So expected and ubiquitous that we hardly notice them anymore. Unless one is different, unexpected and on some level connects with us.
I can’t remember the last time I saw someone with a character from “Star Wars” permanently etched on their body. This was a battle droid, and I must say … different, unexpected, and totally connected with me.
“That is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” the little boy in me thought … and then wanted one, too.
Think my mom would let me have one?
I don’t have any tattoos — never wanted one before. I can’t stand the thought of looking at the same thing on my body for the rest of my life. Maybe a picture of my daughter, but that’s a little creepy.
But “Star Wars” is different. A lot of us children of the late 70s and early 80s would have given multiple toes for a Boba Fett tattoo or maybe Princess Leia’s cinnamon bun hairdo.
That is what the series of films meant to us. A cultural phenomenon. A life-propelling story of good vs. evil. Most importantly, laser guns and swords made out of light on the same screen. For a kid, that’s like ice cream on a pizza!
No doubt there was at least one “Star Wars” fanatic in your brood. Every house had one. And when I say fanatic, I mean someone who bled “Star Wars.” By which I mean someone who played it with such intensity that they often came home with bones missing from their body.
“What happened? Well, we were recreating the scene where Luke swings across the Death Star bridge and it was on the expressway overpass and that’s the last time I remember having a hip.”
Everything was “Star Wars.” Our clothes. Our toys. Our lunch boxes. Shoot, most days we emptied our lunches when mom wasn’t looking and filled the box with action figures of Han Solo and C-3PO. The doctors could never understand why we were losing so much weight.
The playground was one unending laser blaster war, and some poor girl (unbeknownst to her) was always appointed Princess Leia. She spent the whole recess fighting off boys who zoomed around her with arms outstretched and trying to kiss her. That girl is probably still in therapy.
Oh, in my house we had all the toys. Some were ridiculously hard to get. There was the Millennium Falcon, the rebel base from the planet Hoth, and limited edition characters so rare that riots broke out over them.
When new toys came out, they were often scarce and highly sought after. My dad would go on Jedi quests to find them, braving evil mobs of dads clambering for an Imperial AT-AT or an Obia Wan Kenobi figure with a sliding light saber. Some dads never returned, ashamed that they failed their children. They still walk the earth alone, hitting flea markets and antique stores in hope of one day locating the vexing toy that doomed them — a never-ending bid to make things right.
Such was the hold it had on us. So much so that even today the sight of someone with a “Star Wars” tattoo takes us back. Reminds us of how important it was to us. And how we betrayed it by letting that fanaticism slip. Let that commitment to the cause wane. Not like this real fan and her battle droid tattoo. Well, good for her. May lots of big kids like me see that tattoo and remember the days of blaster wars and daydreaming of Princess Leia.