Our whole family was able to make it to school to watch the costume parade, with Primo as the lone (and blue, and Power) Ranger. The expected red Power Ranger had been replaced by a young Jedi named Ben'dic Ar-Nald. Primo is recovering comfortably from the lightsaber wound to the back. It's nice the way those self-cauterize.
I was surprised how few Power Rangers there were, though. This year's panicky parent poison would have been the Clone Trooper. "Has anyone seen my son? He was dressed as Captain Rex! No, he's got blue accents on his armor - that's an ARC Lieutenant! Cody? Co-deeeee!"
I can't decide whether that would have been harder for me to accept than a Power Ranger. Power Rangers I have no vested interest in, but Clone Troopers are another subject entirely.
We've let Primo watch "Star Wars." ("Episode IV: A New Hope," if I must.) I'd be lying if I said I hadn't hoped to bond over it, but that, it seems, was not to be. He didn't seem to dislike it, but he hasn't asked to watch it again. That's made the household discussion of when he's old enough to see "Empire" fairly moot.
We have some friends who started their own youngster on "Episode I." Reasonable people can disagree, I suppose. After all, people like to get bad news out of the way, eat their vegetables first, and put horrible burns into cool, soothing water. Besides, Primo will finish the series first, because they're going to hit the PG-13 roadblock in the story arc that is "Episode III," which we're saving for last. Anyway, "Episode I" apparently sucked their kids right in. Enough that they've got a "Jedi party" coming up. (Thanks again, Ben'dic. If we would have gotten the Jedi memo I could have gotten a twofer out of the Obi-Wan costume I ended up buying for the party. At least it was on clearance.)
Back when it was Morning in America, my friend's dad was in his living room watching "Goldfinger" on the Sunday matinee. When I asked him what it was he regarded me for a moment, incredulous, and said "James Bond." I had seen "For Your Eyes Only" in the theater recently and told him that the man he was watching was not in the James Bond movie I had seen. He told me that I had been watching Roger Moore and that I should take a minute and watch James Bond. Rather than just one, I took a few minutes to consider Sean Connery and then remarked, with authority, "Roger Moore is better."
I never really got to apologize to my friend's dad. Not in any way that was meaningful after his stroke. They say he probably could have made a full recovery if he had received immediate treatment, but I figured he was just slumping back into his chair to finish watching that dusty old Sean Connery guy. So I left him to it.
I've forgiven myself in the intervening years, and I've grown more circumspect. After all, I was young. Now I can't believe I could ever think Roger Moore was the best James Bond. But, to be fair, who could have seen Timothy Dalton coming? And it's hard for adults to accept that everything newer is better.
Which may have saved me from an attack of the clone. If I would have realized that "Episode I" is the Red Bull to my "Star Wars" Postum, maybe Primo would be "really into 'Star Wars'" now. Then, besides watching him embrace the patently inferior portion of the mythos, I would have had to watch him express himself by dressing as a Clone Trooper. Unironically, which would keep it from being performance art. Like a sandwich wearing a pizza mask. Yeah, I guess the Clone Trooper would have been worse. So, that's decided. Yessir, I can cross that right off my list.
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