Youthful Aspirations

As I was cleaning up my home office the other day I came across some items from my teenage days. Once upon a time (somewhere around 1995), my friends (Jason and Chris) and I had an idea to start our own Sci-Fi and Star Wars collectibles shop. At that time, we were at the height of our Star Wars collecting hobby. We literally slept, breathed and ate (thanks to the Han Stormtrooper Frosted Flakes offer and later the Taco Bell prequel campaign) Star Wars. Naturally, we wanted it to consume our entire lives by making it our occupation as well!

Much of our free time was spent at collectibles shops such as Collector’s Gallery, The Toy Stable (literally a barn full of toys) and Nybbles and Bytes, as well as almost daily trips to Toys R Us and Target (dubbed “the T’s”). Speaking for myself, I think the idea of having my own Sci-Fi shop was particularly appealing following my entrance into the workforce through the glorius avenue of fast food, more specifically 9 months of Taco Bell I remember we were brimming with excitement at the possibility of the idea and began gathering info about starting a business. Additionally, Jason and I decided we needed to start building our inventory of collectibles. With the phenominal inflation of the original Star Wars toys, we figured we would buy some of the popular items of the day, hold onto them for a while and (hopefully) be able to sell them for a profit down the road. I don’t remember all of the items we accumulated ( perhaps Jason can contribute in a comment) but most of them were Sci-Fi related, including some Star Trek figures. We bought some items from the clearance bins at Toys R Us. Our logic was that these being the less popular items would be in short supply in the future and therefore be valuable to collectors. This was the case with the original Power of the Force line of Star Wars figures and we figured it would happen again. Perhaps it didn’t occur to us that maybe everyone already had these toys and the market was saturated. Anyway, my discovery while cleaning was actually some prototype logos (adorning this post) that I had drawn for our shop. The name we had decided on was the simple and rather generic “The Sci-Fi Shoppe”. I remember that we insisted on the more quaint “shoppe” spelling of the word. I’m not sure how long we pursued this idea but gradually I think it gave way to other, more immediate, interests and responsibilities. I was just out of high school that year and attending my second year at Tacoma Community College and became preoccupied with deciding on my area of study. While It was a short-lived dream, it’s fun to think back to that time in my life. An interesting point of irony is that, in the process of cleaning my office, I have decided to get rid of a good chunk of my Star Wars collection. I know, don’t fret, I haven’t completely lost my mind!! I still plan on keeping a number of my favorite items, including my Han Solo collection and prized die-cast sets. A section of my office will still look like a small toy store, as it has been labeled on several occasions. This will continue to be my monument to a dream never realized but not forgotten. Ok, enough of this corniness, I’m done.