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Old-Timers Thread (kids not allowed!)

My long-winded rant on the first page of this thread aside...I actually forgot to mention something. Difficult as that might be to believe. ;)

But anyway, I also was allowed to stay up past my bedtime to watch Star Trek. I had the same person as a teacher in both 4th and 6th grades, and Mr. Mitchell, bless his geeky little heart, used to jokingly (I think?) assign Star Trek as homework. Mom didn't really buy it - I mean, it's not like there was a quiz or anything - but she let me watch it anyway, bless her geeky little heart.
 
That is so freaking cool!!!!!!
Did you ever go back to visit him, later on in life?
I use to love doing that, letting the teachers who had influenced me in some positive way, that they had really made an impact on my life, no matter how small it may have been. (run-on sentence, much?)
 
I used to run into him sometimes - years later we went to the same church, though it was a largish church that had more than one service, so I don't know that we ever got much beyond "Hi, Mr. Mitchell!" and "Hi, Kate!"

But no, I never did tell him about the Trek thing he started. Next time I go home for a visit, maybe I'll check the phonebook. Presumably if I think long enough I'll remember his first name...? Maybe.
 
Oh, and while we're talking about influences, my mother was president of the PTA one of the years that Trek was on its first run, and the board (including my mother, who is quite possibly a bigger fan that I am) voted to move the meeting time so that everybody could watch Star Trek.

It was basically a geektastic childhood.
 
Seriously.

I also remember - I'd forgotten about this until just this second - that one board member's birthday fell on a PTA board meeting night and he happened to have the same name as one of the Apollo astronauts. So somebody made him a birthday cake with an Apollo rocket theme.

See? Geektastic.
 
JustKate said:
It was basically a geektastic childhood.
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Me too.:techman:
My childhood was one model Enterprise after another, cardboard phasers & tricorders, and audio cassette recordings of my favourite episodes to listen to as I fell asleep at night.:rommie:
We were geeks before it was fashionable, yo.:guffaw:
 
Chrisisall said:
No, but remember when she was trapped in the safe going to the moon? NBC ran this promotional contest to see who could guess the 3-digit combination. My guess was incorrect. :rolleyes:
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Wow, that totally explains the really HORRIBLY looped dialog of Hagman saying "4 - 9- 7!"
 
This old timer saw the first episode of TOS at age 13, in 8th grade. Mom was a fellow geek, thank goodness (we were both big Spock fans) but most of my friends and relatives would say things to me like "how can an intelligent person like you watch this awful stuff?" Guess I wasn't as smart as they thought!

I was thrilled to have a serious episodic SF show about space exploration instead of kiddie gook like Lost In Space. I liked that Star Fleet was set-up like a quasi-military organization, and as a serious SF reader and fan of the Hornblower novels, I was delighted at the ranks and hierarchy of the Enterprise, just like a real ship (real to me). The budget imposed limitations, but for its time, TOS was quite an expensive and elaborate production.

Sigh...

I admit to some embarrassment for my heroes during season 3, but was thrilled Spock got some nookie before the series signed off.

TOS is still my favorite. It's the characters - it really was lightening in a bottle, and perfect casting. There are things I quite like about all the later series, but I've always been slightly annoyed at the direction the new producers took Vulcans...and I hated that they made Spock so damned gullible and dumb in Unification. I was also annoyed that Sarek, my favorite Vulcan ever, was saddled with a dismal second wife and an undignified end. And the Vulcan/Andorian thing on E annoys the hell out me to this day. I grew very tired of forehead of the week, and was furious they put the ridges on the Romulans - a couple thousand years would not see that much genetic drift.

But hey, it's all Trek.

Gotta go, I'm leaving now to meet friends for dinner and the last IMAX showing of XI in Indy.

Oh...and PS: I have a bunch of the original novels from when they came out - they're getting pretty yellow and brittle. I had to buy "newer" copies of "Ishmael", "Entrupy Effect" and "Strangers From the Sky" cuz mine were in pieces.

And yes, I think the original E is still beautiful and wonderful, although I've actually liked them all, especially the latest.
 
Hambone said:
I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that in 50 or even 100 years the original series will still be watched, somewhere. I doubt the other series will. aaaaa
We're still facinated by Twilight Zone and some of those are 50+.

I remember the fear generated by the news that the Russians had put Sputnik into space, and what a threat that seemed to be.

I remember TOS. I'm not going to say how old of a old-timer I am... you'll just have to cut me in half and count the rings... and yes, the world was in black and white.
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T'Bonz said:
While I like nuTrek*, I miss when we were more cohesive.

That's not counting the more Kirk/Spock slash! fans, Kirk is better than Spock or Scotty fans, 1st season is better than third season fans....well, maybe not quite so cohesive.

*anything after the original Star Trek
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When was that? pre 1969? I ask because as soon as TAS hit the airwaves, the fanbase fractured; and it was worse with the original 1979 film. Yes, we all appreciate it more now, but back then is was:

"OMG! That's NOT the Enterprise!!!"
"Two turbolifts on the biidge?! Sacrilige! And WTF is up with the Klingons??!!"

(And hey, even back in the day, most people I knew were sorely dissapointed with season 3 to the point where aside from Day of the Dove; The Enterprise Incident and The Tholian Web - there WAS NO third season. ;)
 
Well... I never saw much difference between Seasons 2 and 3 back then. In those days "Star Trek" was all pretty colours to us. The stories played second fiddle to the action and the pretty ladies...
 
*peeks in* I know I'm only 24, but I just wanted to say that some of us youngins like the old girl too. And while I do think the jj-prise is a beautiful design by itself, she doesn't hold a candle to the big-E. Through no fault of my own, I wasn't even alive in the first run. Heck, my mom wasn't even born till 1964. But I grew up with TOS. Well, more specifically I saw the later seasons of TNG, while watching TOS on syndication.

Anyway, guess what I'm saying is this; while I think TNG and on has its place in trek, TOS has always been my favorite.
*runs away before getting dragged into the disintegrator box*
 
Kaziarl said:
*peeks in* I know I'm only 24, but I just wanted to say that some of us youngins like the old girl too. And while I do think the jj-prise is a beautiful design by itself, she doesn't hold a candle to the big-E. Through no fault of my own, I wasn't even alive in the first run. Heck, my mom wasn't even born till 1964. But I grew up with TOS. Well, more specifically I saw the later seasons of TNG, while watching TOS on syndication.

Anyway, guess what I'm saying is this; while I think TNG and on has its place in trek, TOS has always been my favorite.
*runs away before getting dragged into the disintegrator box*
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Welcome aboard. :techman: Put on a red shirt and you'll find there's plenty of room aboard during the original five-year mission! :devil:
 
Chrisisall said:
If you watched TOS first run on NBC, welcome. All others report to the disintegrator station!

I'm old- like, Ron Tracy old, and I don't like the anti-OS Enterprise dissing I hear, as in "It's a toy-looking ship" or production design garbage as in "The phasers are dated" crap.
You little CGI-addicted kids can go to Shakaree.
REAL SF fans go for the STORY & CHARACTERS before the flash!
Now, I love progression, but where we've come from is part of it. So, the OS Enterprise is a thing of beauty, the Tricorders fascinating, and the Phasers inspired, Herberts notwithstanding!!

Who's with me?
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I am. I was born in 1970, so I wasn't around for TOS' first run, but I was there for everything else (and in fact, love TNG and DS9 more than TOS, even though that's my second favorite). That said, agree with your points about the younger generation and their love for CGI stuff. I have a 25 year old friend who embodies this, although he has promised to watch the new movie with me when the DVD comes out. He can't stand the rest of Star Trek (even ENTERPRISE) because "They're soooo old".
 
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