Aroostook Skies: ‘Live long and prosper’

Lawrence “Larry” Berz, Special to The County
10 years ago

    The recent passing of Leonard Nimoy cannot stay overlooked by our community. His performance over the years as “Mr. Spock” well earns the matchless praise for the creation of an original American television personality.

    Nimoy elevated his character to an iconic symbol for expressing both the alien as well as the scientific mindset at a time when America literally aimed at the stars. In hindsight, we can better sense how Nimoy gradually filled out his part — developing the full significance of “Spock” to the weekly viewer.


Nimoy masterfully understood the purpose of “Spock” to the American public. He seemed both terribly vulnerable and wonderfully invulnerable as half-human and half-Vulcan. He projected the intellectual perfection which all of us growing up in a “space age” could aspire to achieve.
How often did William Shatner’s “Captain Kirk” refer to “Spock” as the finest first officer of the fleet?
Indeed, he filled it because the times required “Spock’s” presence.
Recall that several vital pronouncements had flooded across the mind of America during the early 1960s. First, civil rights and the electrifying presence of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had molded the mentality of people to new responsibilities toward our neighbor regardless of race. President John F. Kennedy as well had announced the creative and energizing possibilities of the “New Frontier” while most Americans had soared into unheard of material comfort and growth.
An entirely new generation of children unharmed by either Depression or World War or debilitating illness or plague had enjoyed the blessing of new freedoms and limitless imaginations. America, unified and technologically expansive, began to flex its muscle.
In that light, the ascendancy of NASA as an integral part of American supremacy offered both opportunity and responsibility on the part of the television culture to bring a representative of the new age.
Spock arrives as Kirk’s first officer to offer unique insight and strength to probe the inner and outer space environment of the nation. “Mr. Spock” offers a totally new way to face the future. He stands out as humanity’s helper in processing the “New Frontier.”
The Vulcan serves as a unique creation to bridge humanity’s limitations and the promise of Artificial Intelligence. Each needs one another to process and overcome the new realities. More so today, humanity today cries out for new relationships in facing the current challenges.
We will miss you, “Spock.” You loyally served as both our friend and our adviser in probing the unknown with scientific courage. And we will miss you, Leonard Nimoy. As a man, as an actor, and as a friend to all Americans, you enlarged and inflated our sense of the possible and the plausible. You strengthened our commitment to friendship, freedom, peace, and good will to all. You invited us to confidently confront the future, cosmically.
Despite all the challenges that tomorrow brings, we still accept and long for your blessing: “Live long and Prosper.” Now, we assume and accept the debt and necessity to become “Spock” to the limits of our faith.
 Lawrence Berz, planetarium director of the Francis Malcolm Institute (1988-current) offers this Vulcan salute regarding the pending closing of The County’s favorite interactive, hands-on science center in Easton.