Well, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but big enough. I don’t collect anything Star Wars (thankfully) but I have held on to a few of the first generation figures. I have Yoda and his Dagobah hut in bad shape, the Cantina in bad shape and a mess of old figures that were played with so much you can barely recognize them. Safe to say, I was REALLY young when I had those Star Wars figures.

I also had an At-At Walker, the badass old school Kenner version 1981, but I sold that on eBay about ten years ago. I remember someone asking the dimensions since they wanted to put a computer in it. Well, I sold that magical At-At, the mechanical front lasers still worked although it was missing one of them. So anyways I saw this super-crazy new At-At from Hasbro and I decided I had to get it. Basically, I needed to reunite myself with holistic wonder of the At-At and save Christmas–all at once.

Or well, help save memories of Christmas. You see when Lil’ Johnny Keeler was five years old, his parents called up a New York radio station so he could talk to “Santa.”

“Ho, ho, ho… so what would you like for Christmas this year?”

Little kid voice: “I want the At-At Walker…”

“Um, uhhhh, what did you say there, uh, say again?”

“I want the At-At Walker…”

“Um, er, um…”

“The At-AT WALKER! STAR WARS! EMPIRE STRIKE BACK!”

“Um, well I don’t know what that is… Um, well… But I’m sure my Elves will know! Oh yes, they know the toy stores real well and they stock up on everything for me!”

So Santa didn’t know what an At-At was, but I got it that Christmas. Damn, I started collecting plastic stuff really young…

Instead of playing with this At-At and pretending to dive snowspeeders at it while making blaster noises, I’m leaving it double boxed and its hanging out in the closet. So I kind of got my At-At back, and I feel rather whole again.