BEEN THINKIN\u2019 ABOUT\u2026 STAR WARS JUNKYARDS. The old short bed Chevy blocks the way to the weedy gravel in front of the old repair shop. Tires are stacked against the old metal building, rims swimming with mosquito babies. A beat-up side door is blocked open and from inside comes the sound of metal on metal and occasional swearing. The big elms sway in a breeze somewhere between spring and summer. The sound of a Sawyer Brown song lilts from a cassette deck covered in cobwebs. Across America, a thousand-upon-a-thousand shade tree mechanics work beneath the sun of an America nearly lost.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Far back in my memories of the 1970s, Luke\u2019s floating land speeder glided over the hot twin-suns sands and past a beat-up backwater town the likes of which futuristic sci-fi aficionados had never before seen. George Lucas may have changed cinema as we know it but a great deal of the enduring appeal of that something called \u201cthe Star Wars\u201d was the beat-up backwater quality of the worlds he created. Before 1977, the future was supposed to be all gleaming spires and flying cars. This new movie magic had floating cars but instead set in a place which resembled something akin to the all-but forgotten and crumbling Route 66. The contrasts of America have often been like that: freedom, the open road, the risk that comes with reward. A \u201cworn, lived in\u201d universe, the movie critics called it and applauded \u2014 a place where hands were covered with grease, equipment didn\u2019t work most of the time, and money was always tight, even as starships soared overhead.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I stood in the shiny storefront, all brand-choice red and black and stimulating ivory whites. The manager in monogrammed polo hurries through my invoice to explain that another $1,600 \u2014 or was it $2,400? \u2014 was needed for replacement parts on my increasingly old truck. Otherwise, he said, the truck might become dangerous to myself and others. Once vehicles go over 200,000 miles, anything, of course, is possible. I flinch at the cost. The manager seemed quite concerned. Truck repair is not my thing, unfortunately. I once dreamed, briefly, of becoming a mechanic until my big sister told me it was a waste of my intellect. Even back then, I believed in the importance of the trades, but being lectured by your big sister has a way of sticking with a guy. I call Dale on the way home, since he is something much like my dad and not just publisher of the magazine. I can hear his skepticism of my truck\u2019s apparent plight even over the phone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
So many years have passed since \u201cthe Star Wars\u201d became part of the cultural zeitgeist that we forget in the early years the film series was considered controversial by a lot of deep-seated church people. Mystical powers, Zen-like wizards, space magic and world-destroying machines seemed a bit too much like heresy and too little like John Wayne. I was too young to pay attention to such things but my mom read an article in which George Lucas talked about The Empire Strikes Back and the Jedi Master Yoda. Having not read the article myself \u2014 I was three or four at the time \u2014 I must paraphrase:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Lucas said his inspiration for Yoda was the overlooked, the elderly, the eccentric, the homeless, the man whom everyone ignores, the unimportant, the forgotten. He believed the best lessons come from respecting the least of these, not the most. And learning such was a rite of passage, as it would prove for young and brash Luke Skywalker in the 1980 film.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cAnybody who believes that is good by me,\u201d my mom said and then built me a papier m\u00e2ch\u00e9 Dagobah playset since the one in the catalog cost too much, shaping the sloppy newspaper bits over a partly-inflated balloon to form the Jedi Master\u2019s hut.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll sell those StarWars toys to pay for college,\u201d my brother-in-law would intone later. \u201cNo, I won\u2019t,\u201d retorted my nine-year old self. My brother-in-law smiled indulgently. Joke\u2019s on him. I still have my action figures.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The bright, the shiny, the powerful, the next best thing? Perhaps we should pause before plunging ahead, ever-ready for the next trend, the next big pay-off, the next superficial guru. Our worlds are littered with tech but none of that replaces a good heart and some critical thinking skills. Perhaps we should look instead to the easily overlooked.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
I pull into Schneider\u2019s Tire and Auto at the recommendation of a friend. Danny comes out scratching his head. \u201cI mean, I could replace all that if you wanted me to,\u201d he drawls, referring to the fancy monogrammed polo shirt quote I had gotten the week before. \u201cBut you don\u2019t need it. I could fix your coolant leak though.\u201d The cost is a fraction of the previous quote. I leave happy, relieved. And the truck is good for another 50,000 miles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
In a previous lifetime I was a marketing and design professional, learning to blend brand tone, voice, aesthetic, all to capture attention and engender trust. I once sat in on a firm\u2019s marketing presentation. \u201cAuthenticity sells, according to our market research,\u201d the presenter in too-tight khaki pants said, \u201cSo smart companies hire us because we can simulate authenticity better than anyone else.\u201d The audience applauded. I cringed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIn the hills of life there are two trails,\u201d wrote Harold Bell Wright many years ago. Given that reality, I\u2019m retreating to the closest shade tree. And the higher the stack of old tires swimming with rims of mosquito babies, the better.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u2014 Joshua Heston, editor-in-chief, StateoftheOzarks<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u00a9 StateoftheOzarks 2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Art excerpt: Bruce Tatman, 1983<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEEN THINKIN\u2019 ABOUT\u2026 STAR WARS JUNKYARDS. The old short bed Chevy blocks the way to the weedy gravel in front of the old repair shop. Tires are stacked against the old metal building, rims swimming with mosquito babies. A beat-up side door is blocked open and from inside comes the sound of metal on metal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1865],"tags":[3949,3955,3971,2685,3952,3946,3944,3943,1313,2172,3953,3972,175,3206,3967,3966,3941,3950,3958,3173,3961,3959,3964,3957,3945,3969,1759,3947,3956,3948,541,146,3942,3970,3171,3954,3962,3960,3951,3566,3968,3963,3965],"class_list":["post-15609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly","tag-1970s","tag-3955","tag-action-figures","tag-america","tag-backwater-towns","tag-big-elms","tag-chevrolet","tag-chevy","tag-cinema","tag-freedom","tag-george-lucas","tag-guru","tag-harold-bell-wright","tag-heresy","tag-jedi-master","tag-john-wayne","tag-junkyard","tag-land-speeder","tag-lived-in-universe","tag-luke-skywalker","tag-mechanic","tag-movie-critics","tag-mystical-powers","tag-open-road","tag-repair-shop","tag-rite-of-passage","tag-route-66","tag-sawyer-brown","tag-sci-fi","tag-shade-tree-mechanics","tag-shepherd-of-the-hills","tag-star-wars","tag-star-wars-junkyard","tag-star-wars-toys","tag-the-empire-strikes-back","tag-the-star-wars","tag-trades","tag-truck-repair","tag-twin-suns","tag-wizards","tag-yoda","tag-zeitgeist","tag-zen","category-1865","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15611,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15609\/revisions\/15611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}