Still Trekkin' after 60 years

 

I have been and always shall be a Trekkie.

Space: My first frontier was following the voyages of the starship Enterprise on her original series mission to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no television show has gone before.

I was a year and a month old when “Star Trek” debuted on television. I don’t know if I watched it, but “Star Trek” populates some of my earliest memories. Clearly my mother must have watched it because I was well aware of it three years later when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon.

I was a toddler minding my own business when Mom called me over to watch the TV when Armstrong took that “giant leap for mankind.” I was reluctant to join her because I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about with men landing on the moon. After all, the USS Enterprise was well beyond the moon and Kirk, Spock and the others routinely visited other planets. Certainly, we have been to the moon before!

That’s when I received my lesson about science fact and science fiction. I watched the moon landing with her, but I was much more impressed by Captain Kirk. As I got a little older, “Star Trek” ended its run and went into syndication. It aired on weekdays after school and I watched it religiously.

I know my father wasn’t a fan. He doesn’t care about science fiction. That’s how I know my mother was the original Trekkie in the family. My interest in “Star Trek” was far and away greater than the rest of my family and lot of my friends. I had all the action figures, models, shirts, books, magazines, posters, and anything else I could collect.

My classmates thought I was weird with my Trek obsession. Ha! My fandom pales compared to people I’ve seen at comic cons and sci-fi conventions. Over the decades I’ve seen William Shatner (Capt. James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), James Doohan (Montgomery Scott), George Takei (Sulu), and Walter Koenig (Chekov) at different events. DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy) is the only original cast member I never got to see. I even had the privilege of interviewing Doohan and Koenig.

I was so caught up in “Star Trek” that I had little interest when this new science fiction movie came out called “Star Wars.” Seeing it for the first time in the theater changed my life, but it put my dad to sleep (shh, don’t tell him I told you that). The year after that “Battlestar Galactica” came out. That’s when I knew I was very much a sci-fi fan and not just a Trekkie.

During the 1980s I was fed a steady diet of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” movies. Then “Star Trek: The Next Generation” came on TV and I moved to a whole new level of fandom. That was followed by “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” “Star Trek: Voyager,” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.” About this time I was really getting into science fiction conventions and got to see and meet many of the actors.

Even now there are new Star Trek programs coming out, but it’s been difficult for me to keep up with them. It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s just that I don’t pay the streaming services they’re on. Someday I’ll hunt them down, but right now my life is too full to keep pursuing those next generations. Besides, there are other TV shows from 1966 that I love and want to make time for. It was a banner year for TV with shows like “Star Trek,” “Batman,” “The Monkees,” and “Batfink.”

I became a Monkeemaniac when MTV aired the reruns in 1986. And if you haven’t heard of “Batfink” I’m not surprised. It was a short-lived cartoon spoof of Batman, but I loved it!

Now all of these programs are marking their 60th anniversary and it’s making me feel old. Even so, I will continue to watch the shows when I can and visit with the actors at conventions. Like I said, I have been and always shall be a Trekkie!