Good-Bye, Mr. Spock

I was sad to hear of the passing of actor Leonard Nimoy, who, of course, most famously played Mr. Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek. I generally don't care much about Hollywood stuff, and consider most (though, not all) working actors as "ungainfully" employed idiots who at best should never be allowed to say anything without a script. As Hitchcock once said, "All actors should be treated as cattle." Well, perhaps, not all.

Star Trek and Nimoy's Spock held a special place in my life as a somewhat nerdy teen in the 1960s. I loved science and always thought I would go the scientist route; I devoured science fiction novels, short stories, and films. I had an inner circle of six equally nerdy friends, five of whom ended up at CalTech and went on to become fairly prominent scientists, one becoming quite a star (groan) in the realm of astrophysics. In the end, however, I was not, in fact, good enough to go the science route, so I ended up with politics and history, and landing in the Foreign Service. Government employment, the last refuge of the failed . . . sigh.

The original Star Trek--never had use for the subsequent versions--was a thing of wonder for my friends and me--all of us rabid fans of NASA and firm believers that within our lifetimes we would see colonies on the moon and perhaps Mars. It made science, technology, and being smart cool. If I remember correctly, the show aired on Thursdays at 7:30 pm--in the age before video recorders, ROKU, On-Demand, etc., a nerd had to structure his life around his favorite shows. The next day our little group would debate the plot, the science portrayed, and whether any of it was possible.

We loved that the series lived in a universe free of the party-pooping dictates of Albert Einstein. Limited to the speed of light? Bah! Warp speed! We let pass how it was that the USS Enterprise managed to produce enough gravity to keep the crew walking on and all that furniture solidly fixed to the deck, why the female crew wore such short skirts, or why Captain James T. Kirk--played with great Shakespearean over-the-top energy by William Shatner--would take all his top crew down to conduct dangerous explorations on weird and often dangerous worlds. Didn't matter. The original show was also more than subtly patriotic--remember the episode in which (Canadian-born) William Shatner recites the US Pledge of Allegiance? It assumed a future where clearly Western male culture had come to dominate the earth and Western values of human rights formed the core of the Federation's values as it did battle in the universe with the evil Klingons and Romulans--both presumably futuristic stand-ins for Soviets, Nazis, or Chicoms.

Spock was the center of the show for us nerds. We loved his cool scientific logic and computer-like brain--we let pass how he could be half-human--he had green blood--and how his parents could have successfully mated. Nimoy played him to perfection and with a wry sense of humor. Spock quite rightfully became an iconic figure in our culture and the show inspired lots of kids to take an interest in space and science.

Thanks, Mr. Nimoy. Thanks, Mr. Spock.