Star Trek continued. . . .

One aspect of Star Trek beloved by fans is the Vulcan world and society, and most every fan loves Sarek and Amanda. Amanda Grayson was played by Jane Wyatt of "Father Knows Best" and she returned for a brief, yet wonderful part, in the feature film Star Trek: The Voyage Home.*

In Journey to Babel, Sarek and Amanda made their debut. The Vulcans, having complete mastery of their emotions, do not show them. But Sarek is married to a human. She is very much emotional.

Their affection for each other is shown in one simple way: the two fingers that touch two fingers. I've searched the internet for a picture of the couple, standing on the transporter pad, two fingers that touch two fingers. Alas, I haven't found it.

But I find it to be a truly wonderful, simple, profound display of affection.

Leonard Nimoy recalled that Mark Lenard and Jane Wyatt came to him for advice on Vulcan culture. Nimoy replied that he had come to believe Vulcans placed great importance on their hands and hand gestures, and suggested Lenard and Wyatt find a way to demonstrate that when on screen. The actors then created the finger-touching gesture seen in the episode. ("To Boldly Go...": Season 2, TOS Season 2 DVD special features) - Star Trek Wiki, Memory Alpha

*I'm still mad over the death of Amanda in the new movie time line.

Star Trek

Sissy and I have a friendship that stretches back to our hometown, and is also firmly in the today and now. We share a love of many things - movie dates, a shared Mamaw, and probably most importantly - Star Trek.*

There was a time when Sissy and I were both avid readers of the Star Trek paper back novels, predominantly the original series, but also the New Generation. We would swap books, and read them, and discuss them as if we had read fine literature translated from Greek and Roman.

We share in excitement when new Star Trek things come out. To this day, I am still deeply upset because her Mother, who I know loves me, bought for her and some boyfriend Christmas presents of the newly released 1991 Hallmark ornament of the Star Trek Enterprise.

Did you read what I wrote? A boyfriend? A boyfriend? Somehow I had missed the ornament in stores, but I did not fail to miss that both Sissy and her boyfriend received one.

Completely sold out, the ornaments were, and now even used ones sell on ebay for seventy dollars. I'm not bitter. But that boyfriend was not even Kitten, our beloved husband. He's some guy that I can't even recall clearly for the thought of HIM owning what clearly should have been MINE.

But as happens so often in my blogs, the Hallmark ornament was not the original point of this writing.

I was setting up the situation of my shared love of Star Trek with Sissy, and deep regard for most anything Star Trek.**

* Most recently we have added the Harry Dresden series of books to our mutual love.

** I admit that I finally couldn't hold interest in the last seasons of DS9 or Voyager.

Church Flowers 3

And this is the result of those efforts. I swear to you, I just about threw my back out with that hunk of masonry from a window. MyFella texted me a picture of the church flowers, full in bloom. I think they're beautiful, and worth the effort digging into the hard soil to release them into my Kroger bag.

I really like the idea that they came from something that is gone now. That all the flowers that were there are not lost. I couldn't save them all, just a handful. But I saved these.

Church Flowers 2

During the process of tearing down the once beautiful church styled building, different people were seen driving up and walking around the building, taking away bits and pieces of this and that ~ masonry, stone, flowers, etc.

I know this, because, well, I was one of them. I put a hunk of masonry in the front seat of my poor little Nissan, and went into Walgreens one day just to purchase an over priced set of garden tools to dig up bulbs from the garden.

I admired the man who was somehow managing to chisel out big slabs of slate that were used for steps, but that was a task more than I could take on. Don't think I didn't consider it.

I would later drive out to MyFella's with my hunk of masonry and my bulbs. I walked out to a spot in the flower bed where he and I work hard to grow pretty things, and I planted them all. He suggested that I should have allowed them to dry for a season and planted them, but the deed was done. And what's done can not be undone. I plunked the masonry down near them and I hoped for the best.

Time passed. And passed some more.

Church Flowers

oh, a year ago, maybe slightly more, a building on Union Avenue which housed a home office for a branch of the Presbyterian Church was sold, torn down, and replaced with the perfect blend of Protestant Christianity and Secular Fast Food, a Chick-Filet.

It was a stunning building that looked like a church from the outside. I thought it was a church, and I'm sure most people did as well.

After the announcement, the ensuing cries and lamentations could be heard all across Memphis, with the loss of the beautiful architecture, to be replaced with yet another fast food restaurant, which seems to completely populate Union Avenue.

To make matters more interesting, the Heritate Commission threw down with a brow beating on the Chick Filet people until they relented and left up one wall of the building, facing Union, and propped it up, lit it up, and turned it into a patio. It created such a horrible traffic flow that the restaurant, already destined to be popular because, well, it's Chick Filet, seems even more busy due to the way they built the drive-through to accommodate the wall.

And this wasn't the original point of today's blog, but while I appreciate that Chick Filet decided/gave in and kept the wall up, and I can appreciate the Heritate Commission's intent, really, to me, the wall just looks sad and pathetic. To me, it's not the tribute to the architecture it was intended to be.

Drive by and judge for yourself.

At the end of the street. . .

I passed them this morning, at the end of their street. Three kids, with backpacks, standing in the cold, I assume waiting on the school bus to arrive. I think they're probably not like me, with the years that separated us - all that society has become. But I suppose it's possible they have similar teenage angst and issues as I did back then. I could have been more like them than I would have imagined, if I could have seen twenty plus years into the future.

For just a moment, as I continued down Biscoe Street, towards the bridge that would lead me to my destination for the day, having spent the night with my parents in my hometown, I allowed myself to . . . glimpse back? To standing at the end of my street, waiting for my bus. I can remember the kids I waited with, can't I? Or can I just remember the sensation of waiting with others, because there were always neighborhood kids. So surely I wasn't waiting on the bus alone. Surely I stood in the cold with the others. At the end of my street.

Twenty seven years, and all that comes with those years, separate me from those three teenage kids. It's an odd juxtaposition for me, seeing them at the end of their street, at the end of what was my street, with all that time between us. I guess twenty seven years and maybe 12 to 15 feet, because I usually stood on the sidewalk just to the North, in front of the brick house.