Doug Clark: The force returned to Spokane’s Michael Runyan last week

“May the Force Be With You.”

Michael Runyan stared and puzzled over those six words that have now become as recognizable as the Pledge of Allegiance.

But this was May 25, 1977, mind you.

And the strange phrase stood out in white script on a cobalt blue metal button.

An employee at Seattle’s Cinema 150 gave a pin-back button to Runyan and one to his sweetheart, Marilyn Jackson, just for buying tickets. Both science fiction fans, the couple had walked to the theater from their apartment to attend the matinee.

“She just handed the buttons to us. Didn’t say anything,” he recalled. “Mar and I looked at each other in confusion,” he said, wondering, “What the hell is ‘The Force’ about?”

Two hours and one minute later, they would exit the movie with the meaning forever burned into their brains.

The rest of the planet would soon catch up.

Michael found his old button last Thursday. The South Hill resident sent a photograph of the keepsake along with the story of how he obtained it in an email to me.

It was Runyan’s way of celebrating a true milestone in pop culture: The 40th anniversary of when the original “Star Wars” movie opened.

Hard to believe that there was ever a time before Star Wars. But just like the Runyans, everyone I know who saw the movie when it first came out can recall where they saw it and whom they saw it with.

“In Coeur d’Alene, at that theater behind the drive-in,” said Dave Oliveria, my longtime friend and fellow columnist for The Spokesman-Review.

Yep. I saw “Star Wars” when it finally landed in our area with the Oliverias, Dave and Brenda, and my lovely wife, Sherry.

No cool freebie buttons for us, dammit.

Guess that’s the difference between seeing a new movie in the haughty Emerald City versus the hub of Kootenai County.

Just like the Runyans, however, we left the theater totally blown away. The movie was transformational, yet totally accessible at the same time.

Heck, the themes in “Star Wars” could’ve come out of practically any John Wayne western.

Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Roger Ebert got it right when he wrote at the time: “ ‘Star Wars’ taps the pulp fantasies buried in our memories, and because it’s done so brilliantly, it reactivates old thrills, fears and exhilarations we thought we’d abandoned when we read our last copy of ‘Amazing Stories.’ ”

We also found ourselves bubbling with a fascinating new vernacular that included fun-to-say words like “Wookiee” and “lightsabers” and, yes, “Darth Vader,” arguably the most compellingly scarifying villain in filmdom.

“I was dazzled and dazed,” Marilyn Jackson Runyan, an artist and educator, said of her reaction. “An ooh and ah moment.”

Her hubby, a retired musician, agreed.

“We went into the theater that was maybe a third to half full,” he said. “And then the movie started with that rolling-into-the-distance text explaining the film’s premise.

“We had never seen anything like that before and we, like the rest of the audience, sat there with our mouths open.

“And we were that way through the rest of the movie.”

After the credits rolled, Runyan said everyone “stumbled out” of the theater as if they’d all been on “the most intense carnival ride of our lives.”

He said he looked through glazed eyes at the woman who would soon become his wife.

“Mar took her button out of her pocket and said, ‘I guess now we know what “The Force” is.’ ”

Michael said he responded with a loud and scatological, “No (kidding), babe!”

It’s amazing how a couple hours of makeup and make believe projected onto a large, reflective screen can have such an effect on, well, almost everything.

I watched the original “Star Wars” not long ago.

Although I still found it a lot of fun, much of the movie struck me as dated and somewhat silly.

It’s not that the movie had changed – I had.

I was no longer a 26-year-old, yet to be a father. The years have done a job on me, stolen my naivety and changed my perspective.

Baggage. I have baggage.

Plus, I’ve seen too many movies with far better special effects.

Ah, but wouldn’t it be great to take a time machine ride back to when you first saw “Star Wars” and heard that stupendous John Williams’ score?

I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Although, before taking my seat, I’d definitely demand a free button.