Feel the Power ...

Klingons and Romulans are best of buddies compared to the animosity between Star Trek and the Star Wars fans. I try to stay neutral on such matters (especially at work where I don't want to upset our resident Klingon warriorette, but that's a whole different story). As I say I try to stay neutral, but my sons (on the other hand) have always been clearly in the camp of the Jedi, though I often fear they've succumbed to the power of the Dark Side. (You might say I have Sith sense about that -- but only if you like really corny puns.)

I believe it was Mel Brooks's classical flick, "Space Balls" that turned #2 son James to the "Down Side of the Schwartz" sometime around age 12. Thereafter, Star Wars became the cool source of Brooks's parody. So one day (when James was in eighth grade) I called home in the evening to let Joyce know I was on the way. James answered so I gave him my level-best James Earl Jones: "This ... is your father." And young Skywalker, of course, answered back: "Nooooo! Noooooo!"

From that point on it was the same routine, every single day all the way through high school ... and the joke never got old.

But one can't always get to deliver the punchline. James was never our most graceful child (though as James would put it, "Oi got bettah"), but during one of his clumsier growth spurts he happened to be walking by the counter that separates the kitchen from the livingroom and somehow managed to hook the heal of his shoe under a barstool and caused it to topple. To all appearances (since he hadn't actually banged into anything) the stool had just rolled over on its own as he strode past.

His older brother Andy looked over at James and opined, "The Force is strong with this one."