“Why it’s Luke, and Obi-Wan, and my favorite, Chewie! They’re all here!”
—Principal  Skinner, “The Simpsons”

When I first went away to college, I left my parents with two proud messages: 1) That I was that day a man, heading off into the great uncertain future, and  leaving behind my childish past, and 2) That they should under NO circumstances throw  away my “Star Wars” action figures while I was gone.

Whether or not I indeed left my childish ways behind remained a point of some debate  throughout college — mostly between me and a string of frustrated, pretty-eyed co-eds. But thankfully the second message was respected by my folks, and my “Star  Wars” toys were safely archived in the recesses of our basement, protected — like so many Han Solos in carbonite — among boxes of my dad’s old Time-Life books and obsolete, mustard-colored kitchen appliances from the ’80s.

Cut to 5 years later: I hopped the Metro North upstate this Memorial Day weekend to visit my parents. And while reuniting with family is always heartwarming and junk, my true moment of reconciliatory joy came when I found three-Birthdays’ worth of my old  “Star Wars” figures sitting in a Nike shoe box in our basement, unearthed during a recent spring cleaning from a moldy cellar corner far, far away. I immediately brought them upstairs and into the daylight for the fist time since playing with them was geeky in an UNcool way. (Who knew Jr. high schoolers had such poor senses of irony?)

As you can see from the photograph I took above, the toys are as lovingly scuffed as ever. Before returning to the city and my manly adult future tomorrow, I’ll be sure to return them to the spot where I left them when I was fifteen: On my bookshelf, right next to where I kept any chances I had of getting laid before graduation.