It happened during the 1983/84 school year and I was four years old. My best friend in preschool was a kid named Marcus. While I thought I was friends with all of the kids in our class, Marcus was the only one who really treated me like I was his friend.
Show and tell was always a highlight - being able to see all the cool stuff other students brought. Their swag was always so much cooler than anything I had to share. Marcus proved it one week when he brought in the Millennium Falcon play-set. It was the big one that opened up and had space to stand action figures inside. It was so large he had to carry it with two hands.
photo courtesy Kenner
My mom and aunts took me to the theater for a Return of the Jedi showing the previous summer and I thought it was the best movie ever. I was obsessed with Wookiees, Ewoks, Sarlaccs, and Kowakian monkey-lizards (Salacious B. Crumb was my favorite character).
The most exciting Star Wars toy I owned was a speeder bike that exploded into four pieces when you pushed a button behind the seat. Then my best friend walked into our classroom with the most epic toy my young brain could have imagined. I was legitimately jealous. When it was his turn for show and tell that day, I spoke the word that Keanu popularized a decade and a half later. “Whoa.”
Was it really that awesome though? I thought so. And Marcus was proud of it. Unfortunatly, we were the only two students who had positive feelings about the Millennium Falcon. The other kids in our class were unimpressed. When our teachers asked if anyone had questions for Marcus, I was the only student to raise a hand. No one else cared. I watched Marcus deflate, his pride slowly evaporated.
These days, the same toy now sells for anywhere between $300 and $400. In hindsight, Marcus and I knew something about the magic of a galaxy from a long time ago and far far away. We were ahead of our time. Or rather, we were geeks out of place. Return of the Jedi might have been the most popular movie of 1983, but in our conservative evangelical ran preschool in our corner of suburbia, being a Star Wars fan made you a weirdo.
Marcus’ anticlimactic moment in the show and tell spotlight was the first time I realized I was weird. All our peers disapproved of his special interest except me. If he was weird for what he liked, then I was weird too.
Countless interactions with my church peers throughout my childhood and adolescence reconfirmed my oddities. I was the short kid, uncoordinated, and the last one picked in all of our competitive games. I was the theater geek, the quirky and socially awkward kid, the only one in church who read comic books. I was the lone fan of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I was never elected into the leadership team even though I was one of the few kids who showed up to every event, entered every talent show, played every puding-through-the-nose game, attended every camp and retreat, and participated in every work and witness trip. By the time I graduated high school my role of the outcast was clear, I would never be a part of that inner circle.
Marcus was still around, as weird as always. But he was at peace with his weirdness. He found a way to lean into it and embrace it. He knew the cool kids in our youth group would never accept him, and he didn’t care. He and I walked away with his preschool show and tell defeat with different lessons. He was determined to never let the opinions of our church peers bother him again, while I desperately and fruitlessly sought their approval. It would take me another two decades to find the happiness in weirdness Marcus developed as a teenager.
Grandpa Budd’s funeral was last week. I watched online as Grandpa’s friends and my family entered with a pizazz rarely observed at such somber events. Many wore red clown noses, track suits were abundant, a few people walked into the sanctuary on stilts, and nearly everyone wore bright colors. After the funeral, they held a party with calisthenics and dancing. In the atmosphere of grief and loss, the room was filled with joy and energy. That’s the way Grandpa desired it. He wanted his family to be as loud and as fun as he was.
This is the side of my family who treated me to my first movie theater experience to see Return of the Jedi. This is the side of the family who taught me to enjoy Batman, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix - but also "normal" things like travel and volleyball. Grandpa was an athlete and educator with an irrepressible thirst for knowledge and a goofy sense of humor. He gave me my passion for continuous learning and my insatiable wanderlust. He also gifted our whole family the freedom to be weird. Or as my cousin Wendy said, “Thanks Grandpa for being a total weirdo and ensuring that your family followed suit.”
photo courtesy my cousin Wendy
My life has been so much better since I learned the skills my friend Marcus and my Grandpa Budd had already mastered. Weirdness is an asset. My family has always been weird and it took me far too long to appreciate it. I’ve always been weird and I wish I gave myself permission to enjoy it sooner.
Be weird. It’s a beautiful thing to embrace your weirdness. If I have one mission in life, it’s to live out my God-given weirdo personality to help others find joy and peace in their own weirdish ways. To help you live weird.
More to read:
Marcus and Black Hole Sun
Marcus and cold weather
Remebering Grandma Budd
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