When I was in my twenties, my favorite television show was Star Trek. I could hardly wait each week to hear the words, “Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the star ship Enterprise, its mission is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has ever gone before!”
And what a cast! There was Captain Kirk, who wasn’t afraid of anything in the entire universe (I remember that my girlfriend even had this incredible crush on him, although she swore it was just because he had perfect posture); Spock, who could outwit any alien he came across with his dispassionate logic, and if that didn’t work, he would just casually snuff them out with one of his patented Vulcan death grips; Bones, the opinionated ship doctor who was continually trying to humanize Spock when he wasn’t busy examining patients and coming up with really complex medical diagnoses by simply scanning the critically ill with what looked like nothing more than a Remington electric razor; and of course, Scottie, who was always just precious moments away from running out of enough power to keep the Enterprise from blowing up or being trapped forever in some deep dark black hole in outer space. His character, by the way, also led to a great bumper sticker which simply read, “Go ahead, Scottie, beam me up.”
A few years ago, I tried real hard to get interested in Star Trek, The New Generation, but without a whole lot of success. The new captain was some old bald guy and he just never seemed to have that confident air of absolute control (not to mention perfect posture) that Captain Kirk had when he stood on the deck shouting out orders to Chekov, Sulu and Uhura.
Lavar Burton had a pretty good role, but that weird looking thing they stuck around his eyes from ear to ear looked so ridiculous that it was hard to take anything he did very seriously.
The best character by far on the new series was a Klingon named Lieutenant Worf, but for some reason the creators of the show decided to stick a big cow patty on his forehead with huge veins running all through it and I could never concentrate on what he was saying because I could never take my eyes off the darn thing.
Anyway, back when Star Trek was the biggest thing on television, I started to notice that some of my friends, and also an alarming number of complete strangers, thought I looked a little bit like Captain Kirk’s loyal sidekick, Mr. Spock.
“It’s the way you cut your hair,” my girlfriend finally told me one day. “Just don’t let your barber cut off all the hair above your ears anymore.”
“What are you saying?” I asked in amazement. “You don’t actually think my ears look like Mr. Spock’s, do you?”
“Well,” she said reluctantly, “maybe, at times, just a little?”
“But Spock’s ears are pointed!” I exclaimed.
“I know that,” she tried to explain. “I didn’t say your ears were pointed, now did I? Stop being so sensitive. It’s just that, well, you have black hair like Spock, and you kinda cut it the same way as he cuts his, and you have that same menacing eyebrow he has, and your ears are, well, you know, just a little prominent.”
“You are too saying I look like Spock!” I shouted in disbelief.
“No, I’m not,” she swore, “but even if I was, I happen to think that Mr. Spock is a very nice-looking man. You should, well, you know, take it as a compliment.”
“But Spock’s not a man at all,” I yelled. “He’s a bloody Vulcan!”
A few weeks later, when I finally started talking to her again, she promised never to bring up my alleged resemblance to Mr. Spock in any of our future conversations. I started wearing my hair a little longer, and that was that, until last Thursday afternoon.
I had just had my hair cut earlier in the week and I was substitute teaching at the high school.
“They’re really a bunch of great kids,” the teacher told me. “They’ll tell you exactly what’s on their mind and I think you’re going to really like them.”
And so, I did, until fifth period rolled around and a couple of them casually strolled up to my desk and very politely asked if they could ask me a personal question.
“I guess so,” I said, a little worried. “What is it?”
“Well,” said one of the freshmen with a straight face, “we were just kind of wondering if anyone has ever told you that you look just like that Mr. Spock guy? You know that Vulcan dude in those Star Trek movies?”
“No,” I lied, “no one ever has.”
As I glared at him, they both broke into a smile, spread the middle fingers of their right hands as far apart as they could and formally saluted me with Mr. Spock’s famous hand signal. “Well, Mr. Fisher,” said the braver of the two, “we just wanted to say, live long and prosper.”