How Star Wars Saved My Life

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When I was 12, in 1983, Return of the Jedi was released. By then we had moved to Pine Bluff, Ark., and we attended the Church of Christ three times a week. In the months before my brother and I went to Little Rock to see Jedi open, I prayed the Lord would send me to live with Han and Chewie. I doubted my ability to perform Jedi-like feats, but I figured the Obi-Wan ghost would help me. This was a period when I came home from school with spitballs in my hair.

After Jedi, I was despondent that Star Wars had ended. But a few weeks later, I discovered Star Trek reruns. I watched every one of them, usually late on hot summer nights, the air conditioning dialed down to freezing, like space. I became, of course, a stupendous nerd. It had been sort of sweet when I merely yearned to be transported from a world I couldn't control. Now I was learning Klingon phrases.

Both Star Trek and Star Wars are ending this month. Star Trek: Enterprise finishes its four-season run May 13; the next TV season will be the first in 18 years without new Trek episodes. My boyfriend, who hates sci-fi, is thrilled. As for me, I have finally fallen out of love with Han Solo, and when I pray, it's for God to whisk me away to the Pinot-drenched Santa Ynez Valley of Sideways. But I am also relishing my old Star Wars anticipation. True, Lucas' beautiful but turgid prequel trilogy has disappointed--but then again I am no longer an awestruck boy secluded in a theater, trying to find himself in that place far, far away. •