Long ago, in a galaxy far away...

Last week, I was rummaging through my basement, looking for a grease gun for my son to use on my riding mower deck, when I found a motley crew of 4-inch plastic superheroes in a cardboard box, long forgotten on a shelf.

I brought the box upstairs and sat at my computer desk, going through the figures, running my fingers over the memories of the past.

Amid broken legs and torsos of some not-so-sturdy, unidentifiable action figures, I picked out six still-intact Star Wars characters--Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2D2, C3P0, Boba Fett (the bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader) and one of the snout-faced aliens from the famous cantina scene. (You do remember, don't you??)

Whoever designed these particular models seems to have had eternity in mind, because the Star Wars figures had no crushed knees, as did poor Superman, who had to sit forlornly, leaning up crookedly against my computer tower.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Many of the toys could use a bath; I remember that they accompanied their masters outside to the dirt pile on occasion. Are Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi still out there, buried under the deck that we built over the beloved mud hole in later years? Do the two mortal enemies still continue to fight with their light sabers in the darkness of my basement wall?

My son Todd was 40 years old in February, and I know that most of the Star Wars figures are his, but my younger son Matthew, coming along five years later, re-discovered the mysteries of the universe in his own time.

I admit that I was thrilled, when Star Wars lived again.

Todd (We called him "Toddie" in those days) was also a big Star Trek fan. One year, I bought him a simple plastic case that replicated the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise, complete with two "transporter" compartments that could hold the Barbie-size models of Cap't Kirk and Science Officer Spock.

By modern standards, I'm sure the set would be laughable, but in the late 70's, the toy was magical! We would put the figures in the compartment and whirl them around, imagining that their molecules were rearranging themselves in space to be beamed down to a strange planet!

How could I have let those two figures, clothed in their authentic Star Fleet blue and gold uniforms, slip away from me?

Did Spock and Kirk meet the same fate as Todd's G.I. Joe figure with the "real" hair? I looked outside one day to see one of the dogs with a camo-clad G.I. Joe gripped between his paws, carefully tearing out the hero's short hair with his teeth! Oh, horrors! What a terrible fate! I, of course, ran out to rescue the ill-fated war hero, but, ever after, he looked as if he had mange.

I still harbor the hope that some of the lost items will resurface one day from their hiding places in the mists of time....or under the basement stairs...

As my mind travels back to those glorious space adventures of the past, I realize that I really am a "nerd" at heart. Is it any wonder that I love television's "Big Bang" boys and their crazy antics? I watch with delight the episode in which they dress up in their Star Trek costumes on the way to Comic Con and get their car stolen. Priceless!!!

From the hills of Crowley's Ridge in the southern sector of Missouri in the country of the United States on the third planet from the sun, this is your very rural reporter Madeline, imagining herself on the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise, as Lieutenant Sulu plots our course to a new galaxy.. In the words of Mr. Spock, "Live long and prosper!"