Peter Mayhew - What A Wookiee

I've often told the tale over the years that I saw STAR WARS at a most impressionable age (I was eight), and was whisked away to a far off galaxy, which made me believe that droids, Jedi Knights, and Wookiees really existed.  I think part of the beauty of George Lucas's lived-in galaxy was that parts of the movie seemed to have been shot like a documentary, of a place you could really visit, if you knew where to go.

Of course, I knew reality from make-believe at age eight, enough to know that it was a movie and not reality, but the point was that, the boy I was could suspend his disbelief, and buy into the world(s) of STAR WARS wholeheartedly, choosing to forget that it was all make-believe.  And the slouching, hairy slob that I've grown into is still able to believe . . .

And speaking of hairy beasts, Peter Mayhew died this week.

It was interesting to see all the outpouring of accolades and affection in the press for Mayhew these last couple of days.  Apparently, it wasn't just me his character touched, and a lot of folks recognized the SOUL of Chewbacca coming through, despite being buried under twenty-three pounds of yak fur.

I was on a flight out of Los Angeles in 2002, and Mayhew was at the airport flying out at the same time.  I asked him if I could get a picture and he told me to wait until we were boarding, so a bunch of people didn't recognize him and also want a picture.  You see, he was pretty hard to miss (or mistake for somebody else).

A couple years later, I paid to get Mayhew's autograph, and that's cool, something I still have, and joins Uncle Owen, Admiral Ozzell, Artoo-Deetoo, and Princess Leia who I was lucky enough to meet before they died.

But Chewbacca's still out there.  Apparently, nobody's ever really gone.

Boy, you said it, Chewie.