So my stepfather, always the treasure hunter, knickknack rescuer and all-out purveyor of “stuff,” dropped me a huge surprise a couple weekends ago from one of his collectible raids.

In 1980, The Empire Strikes Back ruled everything in my 10-year-old world. Much as the original Star Wars did in 1977.

Suffice it to say, I’ve had my own spurts of collecting things throughout my entire life. Lately, it’s down to comic books and the occasional movie soundtrack or score. Thinking back upon on my childhood, I’ll never forget Burger King carrying four drinking glasses sets for all three original Star Wars films, including Return of the Jedi.

I used to have all four from Star Wars: A New Hope as a child, now down to a single with C3P0 and R2D2 on the desert planet, Tatooine. The other three, well, too many moves, too much carelessness in my younger life, always forgetting bubble wrap. So be it.

When The Empire Strikes Back was out, I would harass my father to take me to Burger King every Saturday when a new glass in that cycle arrived. It took us no time to collect the glasses for Lando Calrissian/Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Yoda (which I still have) and our droid pals, Artoo and Threepio in a bipolar icy climate on Hoth.

What was the biggest pain back then, was getting the legendary Darth Vader/Boba Fett glass. Given Empire was the debut of everyone’s favorite intergalactic bounty hunter, anything with Fett on it was an instant sell. In Burger King’s case, a instant sell out.

My dad was many things, good and bad, but never let it be said the man didn’t love me, nor would I ever accuse him not going out of his way for me. In this case, I dragged the poor guy to numerous Burger Kings in search of the Vader/Fett glass to no avail.

Every one of them had extras of Lando and Leia the entire run of those glasses. Kinda reminds me of Turbo Man and his pink fuzzball sidekick nobody wanted, Booster. Not that Calrissian, the king of cool in a galaxy far, far away would ever be considered an unwanted kickaround.

In the end, I never got that Vader/Fett glass and I let my dad off the hook after exhausting his patience. As I got older, I thought about that glass, but it became a whatever thing for me, as I pared down and purged most of my collections over time. Sidebar, if you can get your head around it, to snag a glass back then, you only needed to buy a medium Coke for .88 cents!!!

Can you just imagine the shock on my face to find that Vader/Fett glass sitting on my Pop’s bar? The man both did and didn’t have a clue what a magical moment that was for me at 53 years old. Like my cousin, Shawn, scoring those Eddie Murray bobbleheads for us outside the stadium when we got skunked out of them at the gate even showing up an hour early for the Orioles game. Very much like that, only over a more extensive bit of time.

I think my Dad is probably happy and feeling skunked himself from the great beyond that it was Pop who managed to pull it off. But I got my Vader/Fett glass, yo! It’ll be hanging around with me, screw the purges.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.