A Personal Tribute to Leonard Nimoy

Live Long and Prosper! LLAP

27 February 2015, Leonard Nimoy, aka “Mr. Spock” dies at the age of 83. As a child I grew up ‘fascinated’ by the TV show Star Trek; my parents thought I was absolutely mad for watching this show as they liked watching game shows and documentaries! The show seemed somewhat antiquated at the time I was watching it, over 20 years after its original production yet somehow, magically it was still in syndication.

Of course there was the indefatigable James T. Kirk and his legendary bridge crew, amongst whom was the now-infamous character of Mr. Spock played by Leonard Nimoy. A bit of trivia is that Leonard Nimoy was one of the few original cast members of Star Trek, predating even Captain Kirk who was originally scripted as Captain Pike. Mr. Spock’s original character was much less logical back then, however still masterfully portrayed.

I was always captivated by their dynamic. The verbosely talented, “swaggering dictator” of Captain Kirk somewhat mitigated and mollified by the logical steel trap of a mind that was Mr. Spock. Their nightly episodic adventures were the stuff of legend and inspiration for me as well as millions of others around the globe! First aired in 1966, Star Trek is still shown and hopefully will continue to be shown until we achieve and surpass Gene Roddenberry’s vision of our future.

As a self-proclaimed Star Trek ‘purist,’ anything that did not have Gene Roddenberry’s personal stamp of approval does not qualify as Star Trek for me.

Leonard Nimoy made it cool to be logical when it wasn’t cool to be logical. He gave me a sense of shelter to my emotions at times when I was young and they were running wild and out of control. His character offered a transposition of reality to me when I needed a role model and someone to envision the potential level of intelligence to which I could aspire. I even remember in graduate school, taking a 600-level logic course thinking, “how would Mr. Spock handle this?” Haha, I can be a bit kooky at times!

People that knew me growing up used to know that, in addition to Star Trek, I also used to like watching old reruns of Columbo. I vividly remember Leonard Nimoy appearing on an episode called A Stitch in Crime. Another bit of trivia is that William Shatner (Captain Kirk) also guest starred on Columbo; Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov) also appeared on the series, although not in a starring role.

Through joining a college radio station I took my association with Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek to a whole other dimension. As a radio DJ I would play Star Trek samples over music, sound bytes that I had recorded from my own TV or from Star Trek audio CDs I had bought at our local record store – yes, we had record stores back then. I also discovered at that time that both Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock had released a string of music albums! I played those a bit more sparingly as they were . . . well . . . ‘experimental,’ let’s just say.

R.I.P Leonard Nimoy, you are a legend, you truly made the world a better place! “I have always been, and shall always be, your friend.”