All this talk about the 30th anniversary of “Star Wars” has me thinking about what a great year 1977 was for me. Aside from being 13 and having a girl I was with dump me for some ninth grader, it was a really magical year.
“Star Wars” was a big part of it. If you were a kid in 1977, consider yourself lucky. This was no movie. “Star Wars” was a cultural earthquake. Stephen Colbert, like me a 13-year-old in 1977, said “We went to school the next day unable to explain to our friends how everything was different now.”
I feel sorry for today’s kids, who will probably never experience anything like “Star Wars.”
But that was just the beginning.
I went to my first rock concert. KISS at the Providence Civic Center.
My parents bought me my first stereo. I don’t remember all the brands, but it wasn’t one of those cheapo all-in-ones.
I owned my first pair of cool sneakers. Dark blue Puma Clydes.
My only regret: I wasn’t watching The Price Is Right when a tube top-clad woman named Yolanda Bowsley was called into Contestant’s Row and while running down her breasts popped out of her shirt. I was probably hooking up the stereo.