Growing up a bit…
Funny how the years creep up on you. Many of you are now older than I was when I first started posting on TOS boards, and are even more immature or sad 
Just kidding, but let’s go back to 2001, a time where the internet was just starting to poke it’s head through the social net of acceptance. I used to use dial-up way back then, and broadband was just beginning to become available. My daughter was 5 years old and I didn’t go to work; I lived a life of luxury spending my savings and I was fortunate at the time to be dating a rich lady.
Anyway, even back then we kind of thought that yes, this was how life was, and would be forever, with maybe a few minor changes. But how much has changed in the 10-11 years since the boards began?
We’ve had wars, terrorist attacks, a new pope, a royal wedding, 3 Olympic games, 3 World Cups, 11 Super Bowls, 2 Presidents, 3 Prime Ministers and a partridge in a pear tree, to name a few. What has happened in your lives?
Many of you have gotten married, had kids, lost loved ones, turned gay, turned straight, got divorced, become ill, become alcoholics, got fat, got thin, succeeded in careers, lost jobs, and ended up in places that you’d never even dreamed of.
It was great fun being childish and having a giggle on the old boards, but now we seem to have become a more sophisticated crowd. No one really argues anymore, no posturing, well maybe a few still hold on to the ‘old ways’ 
but there is an element of fun that now only resonates through looking back.
Perhaps like all good things, they come to an end, and now we have moved on to a more mature, engaging world where the internet isn’t really a new idea or commodity anymore. It’s as accessible, or even more accessible than even the old local libraries, which seem to be archaic now, and disappearing. Now we are, whether we like it or not, the old generation!!
As we slip quietly and maturely into civility, we are now armed with enough knowledge of the ‘old ways’ to remind the new, up-and-coming whippersnappers that we can still mix it up and ‘in our day’ we could ‘pwn n00bs’ with just a few words.
But I tested this theory in reality with a few of my students and whereas 10 years ago people would avoid the wrath of ol’ Uncle JQG, the little sods laughed at me!!!
That’s right, they bloody laughed!
And you know what, I kind of laughed too. It was actually funny looking back and realising that things have moved on and although it did make me feel a bit sad, I also felt proud that I was there, that I was part of something, that I helped, in whatever way possible, to create our community. As many great people have said before, we are the writers of history and it is our right to have a chapter to add, and my gawd, we did!
So where to now?
In this trilogy of history, very brief indeed, you can hopefully feel my fondness and love for my history on the boards. Those of you that knew me way back then will remember the vastness of fun and sillyney and the ease with which I could wind people up. Some even now will spend hours trawling through old words and phrases to try to get one over on ol’ Uncle JQG, but even to this day, as many times as they bang that old drum, they really didn’t get it or understand it, and haven’t really grown up! But I’m sure that they will take it upon themselves to paint the pictures of what they believe happened in their absence, and what they feel should have been with all the people they didn’t like being taken out of the frame.
A utopia for the mockers who didn’t like the utopia we created!
Love it!
And in that, we will all become legends because it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or anyone else says. We were there and we wrote our chapters!
But alas, age and maturity catches up with us, and it is those young kids that came along 10 years ago that are now grown up themselves and passing on the history to the new guys with affection and love, and as an ageing Star Wars fan, I find it warming that the passion is still alive and as strong as ever in the new batch of young fans that we have, and I’m glad that most of us are not trying to keep our community in a little box and claim it for ourselves in an attempt to keep those we think we can pick and choose from, from entering the utopia that we feel we need to create in order to make ourselves feel important.
Age and maturity teaches us that we need to pass on what we have learned, because help us it can and help others it can. We need to let go of what we fear to lose, because that is jealousy and as we all know, jealousy is the shadow of greed and the dark side that is!
So as history goes, the past needs to stay in the past and the realisation that you have to let go at some point and not let your personal feelings rule your head and your heart in order that you can move on and be happy. And that is where we are now, so here’s to the next 10, 20, 30, 40 etc., etc., years!
I hope I’m here to see the ‘Centenary Special’, but if I’m not there in person, I hope the legend of me and all my SW friends is!
Keep it real!
