May The Force Be With You
Photo by Matt Reoch
My son is 4, almost 5. He LOVES Legos. It’s one of his favorite activities. It’s one of ours too because he can honestly just sit there with a set of instructions and a tray full of Legos and build. It’s so great.
His favorite type at the moment is the Star Wars series. If you haven’t seen what’s available in this series and you have a boy that’s of Lego building age or a boyfriend or husband that’s into it, you have to check it out. Some of them are just plain over the top. The Millenium Falcon, Han Solo’s ship for those of you who don’t remember, is $499!! Can you imagine??!! We’ve already told Mason that he is NOT to expect that one for his birthday in March.
On Saturday of last week we were going to the toy store for Miles to pick out a birthday gift with the money he had been gifted. Mason of course wanted to buy something himself so we told him he could use his allowance money if he wanted to. He had been saving for a few weeks and had about $16 to spend. He carefully chose a few items to carry around so that he could make his final decision before we left. Two of the choices were smaller Star Wars Lego kits. As we were waiting to pay we asked him to make his decision and he picked the “Assassin Droid Battle Pack”.
Mason paid for his kit with his allowance and while Matt was paying for Miles gift I needed to run into Borders next door to buy a mouse pad. Mason and I ran over with him carrying his new Star Wars Lego box. When we arrived there was a woman hanging out with her baby and Mason being who he is, went right up to the baby and started talking to her. He’s so good at that. The mom saw what he was carrying, leaned over to me and whispered, “George Lucas is about 20 feet that way. He’s in a yellow jacket”.
You can only imagine what had to happen next.
I walked Mason over to where Mr. Lucas was and keeping a polite distance whispered to Mason that standing there, was the man who was the brain behind Star Wars. Behind his light sabers and all of the other Star Wars toys he loved. George Lucas saw us standing there and said hello. I told him how Mason had just bought this Lego kit with his allowance and a conversation then began between George Lucas and my son. It was great. Mason told him that this was his 3rd kit that he had. Two were gifts and this one he bought. George asked him if he had ever seen any of the Clone Wars episodes since that was what the Battle Pack he was holding was from. I interjected that we didn’t think it was “age appropriate” yet. He suggested in a year or two. We’ll see. Then Mason asked him what it was that he had just bought. What was it called. George looked a little taken aback and didn’t understand what he meant at first. He told him it was from the Clone Wars. This wasn’t the answer Mason was looking for and responded with “no, what is it CALLED????” “Oh”, came the response to being called out by a 4 year old. “It’s a Speeder. Well, ahem, actually it’s called a Speeder Bike”.
So cool. No where on the box does it say that and Mason just beamed at now having a name for the vehicle he was about to go home and build. Awesome.
We said our thank yous and our goodbyes and while I was paying for my mouse pad I suggested that we take the pen I was using and have George Lucas sign his box before we left. How cool would that be? Mason immediately responded, “NO! I don’t want him to write on my box. I want it just like this!!”
So, we left and ran out to the car so that he could tell Matt what just happened. I know that Mason doesn’t really get how cool that whole interaction was but this will be his story. One that he’ll tell years from now. How he met George Lucas in a book store with his mom. I’ll remember it for sure especially every time he builds a new Star Wars Lego kit. A kit with the box just the way it is.
