Leonard Nimoy is gone. The Enterprise science officer’s position stands empty, but to quote the lyrics of the lyrics of the Star Trek theme, “Beyond the rim of starlight, my love is in wandering star flight.” So now NCC-1301 has lost her second in command. And I have said goodbye to a man and his character who influenced me so much as a teenager. Leonard Nimoy, best known as U.S.S. Enterprise’s half-Vulcan first officer passed away yesterday after a long struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
I still remember the first time I saw Star Trek and was entranced. I didn’t know it at the time, but watching that first episode of Star Trek was a life-changing event. Star Trek teased my already space-centric imagination.I wanted to write science fiction. A year later I penned (and I mean with a fountain pen and notebook paper) my first novel, a Star Trek story (with me as the hero who died but saved the Enterprise.)
I was especially drawn to Mr. Spock and his challenging friendship with Dr. McCoy. I had a lot in common with Spock. He was the first cool nerd. (I was a nerd, but in no way cool.) His parents drove him crazy. Mr. Spock taught me it was okay to be different, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. Spock may have been a fictional character, but Nimoy gave him a soul. I felt like he was my friend. All too soon, after only three years the show was cancelled–cancelled but not dead. But like Mr. Spock, dead was only temporary. Ten years later Star Trek, would be revived, again and again. Spock would die, then resurrect.
Star Trek gave me the drive to write, it gave me friends, it gave me the desire to use my imagination to visit the stars.
I met Leonard Nimoy in the early 1980s in University of Texas at Arlington’s Texas Hall at a press conference. A Dallas Times Herald news photographer immortalized the moment in his article about Nimoy’s visit. (For the record, I was dressed in a Wrath of Khan-era Starfleet science uniform meticulously crafted by Peggy Dee.) That was a day to remember. I only wish I could find that newspaper clipping.
Not long after, my friends Bjo and John Trimble arranged for me to meet Gene Roddenberry and tour the set of the Wrath of Khan set. I sat on Kirk’s bridge chair. (Actually the chair had been partially disassembled. I sat on a big square battery instead of the cushion. Gene’s assistant Susan Sackett also took me to the engine room where the faint green blood smudge still remained on the plexiglas wall. The smudge Spock left behind when he told Kirk, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…Live long and prosper.” That was the most powerful moment in the history of Star Trek. The sacrifice, the love of friends. I stood there and looked at the set. It was like I relived Spock’s death again and again. At the time I didn’t know that Spock would return.
One by one, the crew of the Enterprise are leaving us. First Gene, then Dee, Jimmy, Majel and now Leonard. Thank you for all the life lessons I learned. Leonard, you will be missed. The Enterprise will never be the same. Leonard Nimoy left behind a generation of scientists and who wanted to reach the stars because of him.
Live long and prosper, Leonard Nimoy. Or should I say, “Until we meet again.”
In 1984 Dusty poses in her Peggy Dee original regulation Star Fleet uniform.
14 Things Leonard Nimoy Taught Me
- It’s okay to be different, but it’s not always easy.
- Cats are beautiful creatures
- Real friends are for life, even if you don’t always get along
- No matter your age or rank, your parents can still embarrass you
- Look at situations logically
- Emotions can get us in trouble
- Always spay your tribble (and your cats)
- Stand up for what your believe
- Every now and then you need a good cry
- Sometimes you meet yourself coming and going
- Science is cool
- Knowing what other people think isn’t always a good thing
- Feel free to sing, even if you can’t carry a tune.
- You have to be double jointed to give a Vulcan salute.
A beautiful tribute to a wonderfully talented person from another wonderfully talented person. So glad and proud to have known you for the past 5.5 decades, dear friend.
Want a Thin Mint or a Trefoil ? 😉
The feeling is mutual. 5.5 decades? That long? Remember when they were called Cookie Mints.
I was also a nerd who wasn’t cool and who felt different. And I always loved the line, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Leonard Nimoy will be missed.
–Purrs (and wags) from Life with Dogs and Cats
A lovely tribute. I also remember being “transported” when first watching Star Trek. I had cool parents who also loved SF/F so they watched all of it with us– Star Trek, Lost in Space, Twilight Zone. My mom even watched Dark Shadows with me every day.
Mr. Spock always was my favorite too, because he was the most complex character. He owes some of that to writing, but most of it to Leonard Nimoy, who could express so much with just a raised eyebrow or pointed look.
It is so hard to believe he is gone. Dusty, thank you for sharing your personal insights with us. You went where few have gone before.
Spock saved my life. I discovered that bullies aren’t as fond of picking you if you don’t react. If Spock hadn’t come into my life in 8th grade, I might not have made it to adulthood.
Dusty-
Thank you for the insight into Leonard and the reflection of yourself. I too was nerdy and picked on in high school for being so different. He embraced differences on the set and off-
I have to agree wholeheartedly with Reason #3. It was because of our mutual adoration of Star Trek that Dusty & I were introduced to each other when we were in middle school (or junior high, as we called it way back then). A truer friend does not exist.
Remember the phrase “I grok Spock”? Another embarrassing memory of the sixties. But that’s why so many young people gravitated toward Spock. He was the outsider with multiple layers underneath a skin different from those of the beings around him. He tried to play it cold, not just cool, but you knew that he really felt the warmth, the NEED of friendship & its accompanying emotions.
Also during those times, I became interested in Jewish culture. I was delighted to learn how the spread fingers that Leonard invented as a Vulcan greeting came about. As a lad growing up in an orthodox Jewish community, he’d dared to peek — while all around him kept their heads bowed with eyes tightly shut — during a solemn blessing given by the rabbi, his hands held outstretched in that fashion over the congregation during the High Holy Day services in his synagogue. How appropriate a way to symbolize IDIC, the anagram for the Vulcan philosophy of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination. Yet another insight into the ways Leonard Nimoy made the character of Spock truly his own. There will never be another.
Whaaaa? I want one of those uniforms. I love these lessons learned. Esp. “Spay your tribbles.” (I have David Gerrold’s autograph on “The Trouble with Tribbles” and Gene Roddenberry’s on “Making of Star Trek.” – both from Vul-Con in New Orleans 1973 or so.)
Nice threads.
Yes, they are fabulous, aren’t they. Some costumer (Peggy Dee) made it. I understand she’s doing stained glass now. http://www.PeggyDee.com .