The Retro Room

At the dawn of this decade, I was working at the mighty Mayo Clinic. During my downtime, I liked to go on the internet and quickly became fascinated with a site called eBay. They had everything. Having just turned 30, I was feeling a bit nostalgic for my youth. How cool would it be, I thought, if I could obtain some of the most cherished items from my childhood?

The first thing I purchased was the Raiders of the Lost Ark LP. I got it for a paltry penny (not including the $4.99 for shipping and handling). Course I also needed to buy a record player, but Goodwill had a pretty decent one for $7.99. I bid on dozens of items, mostly having to do with the Star Wars movies, E.T., and Raiders.

As I continued to accumulate, I pondered where to put these treasures. There was a finshed room downstairs that wasn't in use. That's it! I'll make it my very own retro room, a place in which the year is still 1982 and I'm 11 years old. I was careful not to have anything down there that didn't exist in the eighties. I taped Star Wars comic books to the closet doors and placed Star Wars action figures on the cute little ledge that had been built into the room.

One of my greatest joys was obtaining a 1980 Empire Strikes Back Yoda still in its original package.



It had a price sticker on it that said "JCPenney $2.99". That, my friends, is where I bought most of my figures back in the day. I got it for just over $50, easily worth it in my mind. I taped it about a foot above the ledge. It was a thing of beauty. Not too long after that, I stopped bidding; I'd obtained more than enough vintage goodies.

One afternoon, I went downstairs to rest a bit and noticed a Yoda laying on the bed. Must've fell off the ledge (I had multiple Yoda's). I looked up and saw that the packaged Yoda was no longer there. I looked around a bit and spotted the package...opened. After being encased for more than two decades, he had escaped. Zoe was the culprit. She must've jumped up to get it. Aw, well, what's done is done.

The room isn't used much now, not since we got a TV for the bedroom, but if I yearn to return to those days, I head downstairs, lay on the bed, and read an ish of Starlog while playing something early 80's on my tape deck. To take a peek at said room, click below: