This is a personal story about Leonard Nimoy in which he sits upon a suburban sofa and eats cake.
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | This is a personal story about Leonard Nimoy in which he sits upon a suburban sofa and eats cake. |
| Creator: | Fandom Grandma (Dee) |
| Date(s): | 2017 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Star Trek |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
This is a personal story about Leonard Nimoy in which he sits upon a suburban sofa and eats cake. is a 2017 essay by Fandom Grandma (Dee). It was posted to Spockslash.
From the Essay
In 1966 I was the secretary of a women’s science fiction writing club. We were all deeply into Star Trek from the very first episode, so within a few weeks of it coming on air I called Desilu and asked to interview one of the show writers. I ended up in a phone conversation with Gene Roddenberry about (my primary interest) Spock, his character, his backstory, the planet Vulcan, etc. The interview became an article that got passed around to other science fiction clubs and was printed in our local university newspaper.
I mailed the article to Leonard and before long, he wrote the club back saying thanks for getting the word out about Mr. Spock. We had morphed into a “Fans of Vulcan” club, and sent out little speculative essays and short fiction about Spock & Vulcan (which were entirely speculative; we were in the first season and had not yet seen Amok Time or Journey to Babel).
The following summer, Leonard was touring around to publicize Star Trek (which was always on the cusp of cancellation crisis) and making paid personal appearances. Back then he went out of his way to thank the fan organizations that supported him, and he would write or even stop by if he could, just to express his gratitude. Thus, when he was in our town for a paid appearance, he agreed to stop by our Fans of Vulcan club afterward to say hello.
To picture the scene: we were 9 suburban, middle class ladies (at 27, I was the youngest), in our skirts and our big bouffant hair. We had prepared cake and coffee, set out the china, and freshened our lipstick by ten minutes before he was to arrive. He drove himself to the house, knocked on the door, and when we opened it he said, “Hi, I’m Leonard Nimoy” — as if we would not recognize him in that Spock cut!
He told us we were going to get to see an episode taking place on Vulcan when the second season started, and that caused a buzz that didn’t die down until after we’d seen Amok Time. (I guess the buzz never died down, but at the time it was extremely exciting news that we were going to see Spock’s home planet.)
We talked about if Star Trek would manage to stay on the air; we talked about the science in the science fiction on the show (warp drive? transporters?), we talked about the space program that everyone hoped would lead to a moon landing within a few years. He had brought a stack of b&w photos of Spock, which he personalized and signed for each of us. After maybe 45 minutes he shook hands all around, thanked us, and left.
It’s only in hindsight that any of us knew just what a fortunate moment that was, to have been present before Star Trek was popular or Spock was a cultural icon. At the time, the “phenomenon” of Star Trek was all in the future, and we had no idea!