Whither Let's Pretend?

(Original image here, of all places.)

Confession time: I loved to pretend when I was a kid.  My pretending would sometimes involve other people - in fourth grade, for example, I was such a huge comic book nerd that I organized all of the kids who, like me, didn't play soccer (geeks) into different members of the Legion Of Super-Heroes.  But more often my pretending involved me & me alone: I would spend hours with my Star Wars figures, & whatever other fully-posable action figures I had, making elaborate, episodic stories up &, if I had the time & space, using entire rooms to do so.

One fond memory I have was, for some reason, being alone in my mother's boyfriend's apartment, which was full of weird things an unmarried middle-aged man might collect, & bringing all my action figures (& vehicles, & structures, & whatever) over, & spending the afternoon telling an hours-long, star-spanning story.

Though I loved science fiction, I loved super-heroes more, & I hardly ever used any particular action figure as the character it was supposed to be.  More often than not, I'd make a masked character - like a Stormtrooper - the super hero identity of a non-masked character, like a Han Solo.  The Stormtrooper might be a hero called Cloud Man & the Han Solo would be its secret identity. & I would incorporate whatever toys I had around - legos, Fisher Price characters, whatever.

Naturally, I have no idea what the stories I made up were.  I'm sure they were borrowed from whatever comic book I was reading at the time.  But damn did I have fun.

No promises can be made about a Self Help Radio show about pretending, however.  It's on from 4-6pm today on 88.1 fm in Lexington + online at wrfl dot fm.  Lots of music, plus visits from experts of all stripes.

It would be fun if you listened, but given the show's topic, I'd be all right if you just pretended to listen.