So I just took my leave of my dear wife, abandoning her in the dining room alone with her Sudoko, to come up here and rant in — as I told her — an indignant and self-righteous manner.

I want to know why I am always the LAST to know.

We just celebrated Beltaine in the park, and Marta and I got to be the May Queen and the Green Man (respectively), and we went, as is our wont, to a restaurant afterward to rehydrate in a beer-centric way after our strenuous declamations. As we sat, waiting for our orders to arrive, we saw two Jedi Knights across the street, complete with drawn lightsabers. I called everyone’s attention to this unusual parade, and they glanced, shrugged, said “Meh,” and went back to their various conversations.

“WTF?” I said, only slightly more politely than that. “Two Jedi Knights on the streets of Fort Collins [sounds like an old Western ballad, incidentally], and all I get from you guys is, Meh?”

“Well, what do you expect?” one of them asked. “It’s May fourth.”

My blank expression evoked a kind of pitying response. “May the Fourth be with you?” my respondent suggested, with his eyebrows raised. “They’re having a Star Wars trivia contest at the other end of the bar, if you want to go down there and fleece some youngsters.”

May the Fourth be with you?

I missed Pi Day for exactly the same reason — not knowing about it. Now I missed Star Wars Day? Which was a big enough deal that Jedi Knights showed up on the streets of our small town? And they had trivia contests in the bars? And maybe that’s why the police had blocked off the downtown streets?

You mean I could have bought a ride on a Banta? Negotiated in some hive of scum and villainy for passage on the Millennium Falcon? Waved my hand and said to two Storm Troopers, “Move along?”

Sigh.

This is how dreams are crushed before they’re even born.

I post this as a warning to you young whippersnappers out there. It’s bad enough that your knees start to hurt. It’s bad enough that you get floaters in your eyes, and stones in your kidneys, and fasciitises in your plantars. But the really hard part is getting left out of all the fun stuff.

Still, we can take our revenge. There is an old saying, “Youth and strength can never overcome age and cunning.” So I offer to all of you young whippersnappers who want to hold a Star Wars Day and not bother to tell ME about it, the following cautionary ballad, sung to the tune of “The Streets of Laredo.”

As I walked down in the streets of Fort Collins
As I walked down in Fort Collins today,
I spied two young Jedi, all wrapped in brown homespun
Their sabers were drawn, and they glowed a pale gray.

“I see by your homespun, that you are both Jedi.”
These words I did say as they swiftly strode by.
They glanced at me coldly, and then at each other.
“He’s harmless,” they said, and avoided my eye.

“One moment,” I said, as they turned to pass by me,
Pass by me with pity, with scorn and disdain.
“What want you, old man?” asked the older young Jedi.
“The party begun has, do not us detain.”

“I see by your accent that Yoda has trained you,
And Yoda is strong in the Force, so they say,
But come to the Dark Side, with all of its pleasures,
And stronger than Yoda you’ll be, yet today.”

“A Sith Lord!” they shouted, and raised both their sabers,
I gestured and shook my head softly, and sighed,
“No Sith Lord am I, my impetuous Jedi,
But beat you I shall, for your shoes are untied.”

At home, o’er my mantle two light sabers nestle,
Their grips are all burnished, they glow a pale gray.
Their homespun-clad Jedi went home without honor,
They fell for my ruse in Fort Collins, today.