I'm watching them again.  From the first, "These are the voyages..." in September of 1966 to 2004, I've watched. 

When it wasn't being broadcast in the area I was living in, I listened to sound tapes recorded in the late '60's from the first run. As video recorders came down in price, I got one of them. I even managed to learn enough to cut most of the commercials. It set me on the road to computers.

I'm not enthused about the terms Trekkie, Trekker or the other phrases.  I like good Science Fiction. Please don't call it sci fi or sci fic.  I'll go along with speculative fiction, that's more accurate. A fan?  Define fan.  I wrote letters to try to keep it on the air.  I wrote letters to thank Paramount for making the first film (thank the Gods we got the second film and didn't have to have STTM as our only choice).

Trek came alone at a time in my life when I wanted to believe that things could be better.  The late sixties were a time when everything I'd believed was being turned upside-down. Perhaps I was naive, I certainly was more concerned with my own family than I was with the world's problems. Trek made me look at things, even things I didn't want to see.

Watching the stories again, I can snicker at the editing goofs, the inconsistencies.  Though, to be fair, Trek had no more than its share.  Somehow, no matter what goofs made it to the screen, the faces and voices, the tales told, held me.

There have been other incarnations of Trek. I've tried to be fair to the "children" but, for me, the magic brought to life by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelly was the original and the best.

There are opinions here, mine, and your mileage may vary, but look back with me to those first glimpses of a world where women had a place on the bridge and people of every color were seen as individuals and dressed in some of the most amazing outfits ever seen on the very conservative world of television in the mid-sixties.

William Ware Theiss has his own page here. Bill was a friend for many years and his loss was not just ours, but a loss of a creative, wildly funny heart and mind.

To All of the folks who worked so hard to create the show, Thank you!