I got to thinking the other day on what I would deem as the best day ever of my youth. It can be kind of tough trying to pin down something like this because it seems a lot of my youthful memories are not really of specific days, but of specific events (It was cool when this happened or that happened).

Then I remembered a day from my childhood where on that day I think I actually said "This is the best day ever!" It was, I believe, sometime in late 1982 - which would have made me around 6. The first great thing from that day was my parents taking me to Hamel's - which at the time was the largest amusement park in Louisiana (I always assumed this was by default as there must have been no other amusement parks in all of LA. Of course my only real sense of scale was Six Flags Over Texas, which was bloody huge and Hamel's always seemed to pale in comparison - so this could have affected my rationale). We had a great day there and they had a lot of the usual amusement park offerings - roller coasters, the log ride, bumper cars, the twirly thing, etc... After that I remember we had to run by my mom's office for something - which probably would have made this day a Friday or Saturday. Then when we got home we got the mail and HOLY CRAP - I had mail. Do you remember when you were a kid and you got mail? It hardly ever happened so it was always awesome when it did. That alone could make it the best day ever, but it was the contents of the package that excited me even more - the commander of the Alliance Fleet, Admiral Ackbar, was waiting for me inside the box. I'm sure it was at this point I averred "This is the best day ever!" because I had been waiting for an eternity for this Star Wars action figure to arrive in the mail. You had to collect 6 proofs of purchase from other Star Wars merchandise and mail this in and wait 10 to 12 weeks for processing but it was totally worth it. If I were to theoretically ever get into a situation where I could only pick one day of my childhood to keep in my memory forever, this would be the one.

By the way, after looking up some of this Star Wars stuff online I found the absolute greatest site in the entire world: The Star Wars Collector's Archive. After scouring the site I had to drop an email to my cousin who was as much into the Star Wars toys as I was - we used to play together all the time (he's a doctor now). The email read like I was the dorky leader of dorkydom:

With the micros didn't we have the Hoth Wampa Cave and the Hoth Ion Cannon? I know for sure we had the Bespin Freeze Chamber but didn't we also have the Bespin Gantry? I don't remember for sure which action figures we had - I remember I had a C-3PO that broke apart and that I got Admiral Ackbar in the mail. I know I always wanted an AT-AT but never got one. I had the Slave-I and Boba Fett too I'm pretty sure. Didn't you have Darth Vader's TIE fighter with the curved in wings? We might have also had the Imperial Attack Base Playset. I also want to say I had a TaunTaun too with open belly feature. And I know you had Chewbacca....

I guess you had to live through that period of time to fully understand it.