As you can probably tell from the parades, the newsboys hawking EXTRA editions on the corner and the excited murmurs in the cafes, today is the 41st anniversary of the premier of Star Trek. I saw the first episode on my grandparent’s TV. Scared the holy Kahless out of me. I’ve been trying to come up with a Minnesota connection to Trek; they are few. I’m sure there’s more – any ideas?
No, Kevin Sorbo appearing in a series based on Gene Roddenberry’s ideas doesn’t count.
Here’s a sign of fall: the sound of high school football. While walking the dog last night I heard the chants of the kids on the field two blocks to the north – sounded like a hundred Spartans getting ready for war. You can understand why some people prefer the high school version to the professional variant. Those are our players.
What, and the Vikings aren’t?
Not to me. Not to many. Not everyone loves the Fair; not everyone loves the Vikings.
The Vikings start tomorrow. There was a time, long ago, when I cared. I still enjoy watching a game occasionally, but I don’t root. At some point the antics and attitudes of the players drove me off; it’s hard to enjoy the game if you don’t respect the players. (See also, politics.) It was amusing at first – when Keith Millard confronted police, dared them to shoot and said “my arms are more powerful than your guns,” it was so stupid you had to laugh: all that money and fame, and he's auditioning for the highlight reel of "Cops." You can get away with that if you have a big red S on your chest, but even Superman wouldn’t be so rude. Now the sense of power and entitlement seems to characterize the stars of the game. I’m the greatest. Worship me. Go to hell.
A few years ago I attended a game in the Metrodome, and wrote a column about the experience – it was okay, except for the profuse bleeding from the ears. The game was loud. Everything was loud. World War One called and asked them to turn it down. I got many derisive responses – hey, the noise is part of the fun, ya pansy. You can’t take a little volume, go back to, to, to that silly quiet-place thing. The library! Yeah, go back to the library. Haw. You’d think I’d demanded legislation requiring the Metrodome to turn it down to protect the tender timpanus of the unsuspecting patron who won a ticket in a bar raffle. I just said it was loud, and unpleasantly loud. Not loud in the rock-concert sense, or pointlessly loud like a bar that jacks up the music so everyone has to shout, but dumb loud. Big crashing slabs of noise dropped your head every 14 seconds, big sonic fists driven into your gut every time the ball was snapped.
I left the Metrodome knowing I’d lost interest in football for good - it felt like prefab corporate product that used interchangeable expendable men in holy local colors. The fact that it took years for me to realize this was probably an indication I hadn’t been paying close attention for a very long while - but football has a curious hold on the local imagination. We recall old grainy films of flinty Bud Grant barking orders in the snow, and think there’s still some connection to the Grand Old Tradition.
If you’re still a fan: good for you, and I hope they win. I hope you enjoy the season, and I promise not to clamber on the bandwagon if they manage to win three consecutive games. If it’s another losing season, our collective ego will suffer, and people from other municipalities will have the right to stare and laugh. Ha! Our hired athletes imported from other realms have accumulated more yards than your hired athletes, thus proving our municipality’s superiority in every area, from commerce to arts! Ha! As one local writer put it: It’s the winter of our discontent, except for the part about it being Fall. But it will also be the winter of our discontent in winter.
You’re welcome to it. The closest I’ll get to football will be the sound of the high school games, which drift into my backyard on autumn nights. I remember hearing the sounds the weeks after 9/11; it was a great comfort, an assertion, a proud shout in the face of worry and doubt. It’s not the music I hear, or the commercials, or the reminder that this First Down is brought to you by MegaBank – it’s the roar of the parents and siblings and friends, unamplified, unprompted, unsponsored. There’s a glow in the sky from the lights of the field. I wouldn’t miss the Vikings. I’d miss the sounds from the high school field. They sound like they mean it. This is their season. I hope they win.
Interesting Minnesota/Star Trek Connection
James is right that the connections between the original Star Trek series and Minnesota are few. I did find one interesting one searching IMDB.com. This is from the IMDB entry for William Windom:
His great grandfather, politician William Windom (1827-1891), served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate as a Republican for Minnesota; later became Secretary of the Treasury under James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison. His own character of Glen Morley in "The Farmer's Daughter" (1963) was also a congressman from Minnesota.
Recently reprised his "Star Trek" (1966) guest role as Commodore Matt Decker for the second episode of _Star Trek: New Voyages (2004)_.
I was not familiar with him, but he seems to be a very successful actor and is still working in his 80s.