Hey everyone…
I haven’t written anything for YODASNEWS.COM for sometime now. Between work, my mother’s health and, now of all things, a pandemic, I haven’t had the time or motivation to put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.
I work at a public school in Maine. The plan was to stay closed until the beginning of May and then re-evaluate the situation. The word just came down today that we are to be closed until the new school year starts in September.
This was always a possibility. I guess a month ago we were all hoping that things would settle down quickly and life would get back to normal as soon as possible.
Sadly, that is not the case.
The Senior class of the high school where I work are being robbed. No prom. No Graduation ceremony. No wacky senior hijinks that will live on as whispered legends, passed on by underclassmen. They will be missing the last 4 months of what they have been working towards their entire lives.
It sucks. No two ways around it.
The last month has not been full of high points. In fact, the low points have been many and, at times, almost too much to deal with.
Then I found the little things.
Whoopie pie ice cream. That got me through a night. Going through my CD collection and putting it all on my hard drive to play through my new Bluetooth receiver. That process is still bringing me back to my college days and younger years when I thought I was bulletproof. Putting my Christmas lights (which I have not taken off of my house yet) on at night just because.
Now, my first big bit of escapism came in the form of watching STAR WARS – The Despecialized edition. Yes. This is the fan edit that has seamlessly restored Episode IV to its original form – No Greedo shooting first, no Jabba and no CGI X-Wings attacking the Death Star. It was the film as I saw it almost 43 years ago at the age of 4.
When I watched it for the first time, I completely melted. For the next 2 hours, I was back at that tender age of 4 and everything seemed huge and full of wonder once again. I forgot about everything that was wrong with the world and, even for just the briefest of moments, I relaxed and enjoyed a time of zero worry and total bliss.
The point of this isn’t to hype up the Despecialized edition (but if I was doing that, I would be calling it an amazing restoration and claiming that we have all forgotten what the original film looked and felt like with all of the changes that have been made to it over the years….off the soapbox now), but more so to remind us to take a breath and find those little things in these strange times. Enjoy that cookie. Laugh with the family. And, if you are in a situation to, watch a really good movie from 1977 about robots, wizards, scoundrels and blue milk.
Well, I’ve got some time off from work now. Let’s talk some Star Wars.
As always, buzz me at Traviscrafts@gmail.com . I will see you soon.
Hang in there.