Hmm, I got into Trek proper in August 1972 when I was nine, but my first "fleeting" memory was probably 1967, during its initial run.
My dad was was sitting in an easy chair; it may have been one of the two Danish modern chairs I still own. On the B/W screen (we didn't get a color set until September of 1969) I saw this "circular" object, almost a kind of "ring". No, it wasn't the famous "Guardian" because it was surrounded by blackness and it "grew", slowly filling the screen. Being only four, I hd no clear understanding what it was, but the "thrumming, beating" music instilled a mounting unease within me. Though looking like no animal I ever saw, I just knew it was somehow, alive, hungry, and if I didn't do something, it would eat me. As the the trumpets blared I finally panicked and ducked behind my father's chair, believing I had hidden from the "monster". I screamed for my father to protect me, to save me from the "thing" that would surely devour me.
Yep, it was "The Trouble with Tribbles".
OK, OK, obviously I had seen one of the effects sequences from "The Doomsday Machine". Like I said, I was too young to comprehend what it really was, either within context of the story or the reality of television production, but Fred Steiner's (or was it Sol Kaplan's) music certainly worked upon the primitive reptilian "fight or flight" centers of my wee lil' brain. I can't listen to John Williams' "Jaws" theme without comparing it to the score from "...Machine". Some of the chords are practically identical.
Fast forward to August '72. My father and I had just moved into a new apartment complex, several sections of it still being constructed. One day my father told me he had seen a couple of boys roughly my age playing at the edge of one construction area. I went to introduce myself as they played with their Tonka trucks, the original stamped metal designs, not these wimpy "child safe" pliable plastic models. As we chatted one of the boys, Kyle, asked me if I knew about Star Trek. I nodded that I had seen it once or twice, but at that time, I was more into the various Irwin Allen series, particularly "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". Kyle asked if I would be willing to play the role of "Spock" to his "Kirk" as I was a couple of inches taller than he and had near black hair. I agreed, but I said he'd need to provide some background. Kyle proceeded to describe the basic concept of the show and characters as well as a near eight year old understood. Since the series had recently started its many years long run in syndication, I got a "crash course" in the series when Kyle came to watch the show with me at my apartment or when I visited his place.
Soon, I was trying to arch my eyebrow as Kyle performed his latest feat of daring do to save the "ship". Flair felt-tip markers became our phasers, his mother's spent makeup compacts became our communicators. I found a protective case for a pair of binoculars which served as my tricorder. I had (and still own) a "knock-off" tulip chair which I claimed for my "science station". Most of the apartments had a hanging globe lamp equiped with dimmers. Set really low so to just radiate a faint ambiant glow, those hanging lamps became the "planets" around which we "orbited" our AMT Enterprise models. My, or rather, my father's apartment had a full laundry room, so the washing machine and dryer became the engine room "controls". The public laundry-mats turned into alien computer centers, much to the annoyance of renters trying to wash their clothes. Whenever one of us bought and assembled a new Enterprise kit, the older version had selective regions of its hull "phasered" by kitchen matches to become the wrecked Constellation. An outlet for a storm sewer at the far end of the complex turned into an all-purpose "lagoon" for whatever licensed property we enacted, be it "Trek", "Voyage...Sea", "Planet of the Apes", etc.
It sure was fun to be a "latch door" kid during the early '70s. Sadly, nowdays some "do gooder" would probably have charged our parents with "neglect", but we could have done far worse. As it was, we did nothing more terrible than pretending to "phaser" passing cars (our Klingon ships) with water pistols (the wimpy kind that squirt about two feet...when the wind was good).
So actually, I got into Trek so to have a common interest with someone whom I wanted to be my friend. The fannish obsession onto itself came later.
Sincerely,
Bill
