BYBROCKWEBBture birthplace of Captain James Tiberius Kirk,who
commands Star Trek’s U.S.S. Enterprise-A. During one Star Trek film, in the
midst of time-traveling on Earth to find a whale who can communicate with a
creature in the fu-ture, Kirk utters the immortal line, “I’m from Iowa. I only
work in outer space.” In 1985,the Riverside City Council met and voted
unani-mously to declare their home Kirk’s (future) hometown. I do not know what
convinced this group of elderly Iowa civic servants to unani-mously place
themselves at the epicenter of Nerd-dom. It probably has something to do with
the precipitous decline of small farm ag-riculture and the ensuing desperate
rural econ-omies. But it also probably has to do with that,to a bunch of 1980s
60-somethings, Captain Kirk was a total stud.Setting out on Stardate 23175698.1
(last Saturday), I roped three of my nerd friends into driving to Riverside with
me. It wasn’thard to convince them. The Riverside council members chose the
right fan base to exploit for tourist dollars – Star “Trekkies” think nothing of
ditching reasonable lives and driving hours to glimpse a blatantly fabricated
piece of fu-ture fiction. On the drive there, on highways through cornfields, my
friends and I first ar-gued about stardates, then settled down to making jokes
about warp drives and “nuclear wessels.”The first artifact we sighted of the
town’snoble, fictional future was a model of the U.S.S. Riverside -- a
Constitution class star-ship, constructed on the back of an old trail-er
standing in a snowy park along the major highway through Riverside. This giant
model was a cost-effective alternative the town chose
after they learned that Paramount wanted to charge them over $40,000 to put up a
bronze bust of James Kirk.We parked the car on the side of the road,in front of
the quaint downtown area and got out, ready to take pictures, see the sights,
and meet the people whose loins would ultimately create the man who would begin
it all.Notable among the run-down buildings, empty store-fronts, and closed
souvenir stores was Senior Dining, an eatery sporting a sign proclaiming that
all visitors should “Come in and eat with the ancestors.” Twenty feet down the
street,we found the object of our quest. There above us, William Shatner stood
happily on a sign,smiling but managing to look serious,an arrow pointing to an
alley between a beauty salon and a used-clothing store. Presumably, sometime in
the next 200 years, these will be knocked down to build the Kirk farmhouse.
Reverently, we stepped through the snow and saw before us a concrete monument to
a man whose good deeds are known,but will not be committed or realized until the
distant future. Its stony surface rose from the snow, the black and red letters
carved into its surface as titillating as they were matter-of-fact. It was
nearly holy experience. I posed with the mon-ument. My friends Christine
McCormick ’09 and Anna Werner ’09 joined me in performing a historical
pre-enactment of the scene that would occur on the very spot 221 years in the
future. Anna sat in the snow, her legs spread while Christine pretended to be
that oh-so-famous Kirk child and I held her,obviously the father and the OBGYN.
I think it is impor-tant to note that, though the monument says “March 22,
2228”, the Star Trek website lists Kirk’s birth year as 2233.My wonderment of
the birthplace faded quickly. We walked back out toward the car,but stepping out
into the sunlight at the end of the alley, were distracted by the used-cloth-ing
store, Vintage Ville. The owner greeted us at the door and we slowly wove our
way about the store, trying on some alarmingly inexpensive wigs. The only two
pieces of Star Trek memorabilia available for purchase werea CD with bloopers of
the original series and a set of “Shat Hats” (green, yellow and red felt berets
pioneered during an ill-fated real-ity show staring William Shatner).These were
tempting, but ultimately we passed them by and instead purchased a Ninja Turtles
cake pan. I felt a twinge of guilt, forgoing Star Trek fanaticism in favor of a
cake pan, but it was shaped like Michelangelo and I don’t think I could ever
bring myself to wear something called a “Shat”on my head.StarTrek fans will be
saddened to learn that Riverside has a distinct lack of replicators,forcing us
to purchase food at Murphy’s, the local bar and tavern. After much discussion
and prodding, Anna asked the bartender a question. “Excuse me, but we remember
hear-ing about some sort of…plaque…commemo-rating James Kirk’s point of
conception.” She laughed and told us that it was in the bar. In earlier years,
the plaque had been beneath the pool table,causing quite a ruckus when a tour-ist
wanted to take a picture of it; now, it was mounted on the wall beside the pool
table.After photographing the plaque (and doing a tango that culminated in a dip
which we nerds decided was as close to a historical pre-enact-ment of the
conception as we would venture),we ate our food and pondered the future of the
megaverse. Then we put in Running with Scissors and sang along to Weird Al. As
wepulled onto Highway 218, we couldn’t help turning back and saying to the small
Iowan town, in the immortal words of Dr. Spock,“Live long and prosper."