Throwback Thursday: The Orange Bean Bag Bridge (Flagstaff, 1978)

Log Type: Historical/Archive | Persona: The Royal Cartographer

In the archives of the Urland Universe, every great saga has a beginning. Long before the Tiger Force took flight or the NWL rings were constructed, there was a seven-year-old boy in a wood-paneled living room in Flagstaff, Arizona.

The year was 1978. The mission: The premiere of Battlestar Galactica.

The Command Center

My battle station was a bright orange vinyl bean bag chair parked squarely on the thick shag carpet. I was already prepared for the evening, settled into my Star Trek pajamas, ready to defend the fleet before bedtime. The primary light in the room didn't come from the lamps; it came from the flickering glow of our massive wooden console television.

7-Year-Old Logic: Air and Imagination

I didn't have a plastic toy Viper or a store-bought helmet. I didn't need them. In my mind, sinking deep into that orange vinyl was the equivalent of pulling high-G maneuvers.

• The Controls: My hands gripped a flight stick made of thin air.

• The Sound: My own voice provided the whoosh of the engines and the pew-pew of the lasers.

• The Stakes: My family on the couch were the civilian fleet. If I stayed in that chair, they were safe from the Cylon Centurions on the screen.

The Missing Link

The most interesting piece of this archive is what was sitting on the nightstand next to my bean bag: a copy of Ken St. Andre’s Starfaring. It had been out since 1976, and I already owned the "manual" for space adventure.

But at seven years old, the "click" hadn't happened yet. The show on the screen and the RPG on the shelf were two separate wonders. I hadn't yet realized that I could take the numbers in that book and use them to build the world I was seeing on the TV. I wasn't a "Game Master" yet; I was just a boy in Trek PJs flying a bean bag through a Cylon minefield.

The maps were being drawn in my head, even if I didn't have the ink on the paper yet.

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Product Identity & Legal

The following items are designated Product Identity of Arthur Earl C. Hedges Jr. / The Adventures of Captain Hedges: The world of Zimrala, the Tygerian Isles, the Ether Dragons, the Tiger Force Shadow Saga, and the specific "Hedge Wizard of the Shreveport Cabin" persona. Monsters! Monsters! and Humans, Humans (1st Edition) are trademarks of Ken St. Andre and Troll Godfather Press and are used with permission. All rights to the Starfaring (1976) mechanics are the property of Ken St. Andre. © 2026 Arthur Earl C. Hedges Jr. All rights reserved.