Today is my brother’s birthday. Maybe his wife (Linda) and kids (Nick and Anna) have something pretty cool planned for him today or over the weekend.
I remember the good times we had on this day despite it being a school night: the birthday party he had in 1978 rocked and getting to see the video game Berserk in 1981 were memorable. Sadly, the last one I “participated” in was my junior year of high school and it was shortly after our move to North Dakota.
On this post I wanted to look back at a particular birthday he had in 1979 because I “gave” him a really bitchin’ gift. Well, Mom bought a couple and let me choose which one to put my name on. The first option was an AM-FM Radio alarm clock. Cool. We were both getting into music, buying 45s and listening to WLS. The second was an official Star Wars action figure (they’re not dolls!) carrying case with Luke in X-Wing gear and Walrus Man. Pretty tough choice for an 11-year-old kid to make in 1979. I recall Brian thinking how awesome the case was because the trays flipped over into display stands to show off all the dudes in his collection.
Over a year ago, Wyatt (one of my nephews in Georgetown) received this as a gift; my mother-in-law is pretty skilled at finding cools toys in garage sales. Hard to believe the previous owner kept the cardboard insert shown above and relatively intact. After my sister-in-law Anje cajoled Wyatt into letting me borrow this borderline ad/catalog (he was pretty adamant over it even though it was rather useless as a toy), I scanned it to share with friends who are around my age and obviously Brian.
I only hope it brings a smile to his face like it did to mine; all those cool, good memories I have of us as kids and how obsessed we were with Star Wars.
