It all began quite innocently enough, in the last dog days of August 1981, where I was enrolled as a freshman in college The University of South to be exact. Otherwise known as the " Original U.S.C.," for it was founded in 1801.
The first night or two that I was on my own, I had the first of many surrealistic voyages of college life. Traveling through time and space, ending up smack dab in the middle of a bridge alone! Searching the long empty corridors for another humanoid seemed like an endless but familiar task. Walking them the realization hit me like a friendly slap on the back I knew where I was! I was aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise and in the episode entitled, "The Mark of Gideon." Right on cue, I bumped into a beautiful blonde stranger. The experience mirrored the episode exactly. That is to say: I was Captain James T. Kirk, trying to find out who she was, where she had come from and if she could help me in locating my crew? She on the other hand, had her own agenda of making me want to forget."My name is O'Donna," she says in a very soft Southern lilting voice."Where do you come from, and why are you here?" I ask."I—I don't know," she stammers a bit as if trying to remember. "But what does it matter, would it be so bad if we were the only two people on your spacious ship?" she asks."Yes it does, because over 400 crewmen don't just disappear!" I state authoritatively, but inside my hormones are raging making her irresistible. I acquiesce giving her a brief passionate kiss on her luscious lips.The search was futile, putting us back upon the bridge. I kept wondering how could 400 people just disappear, as O'Donna started telling me about her planet, her memory slowly returning."On my planet, it's so crowded that there is no place to be left alone. That is why your ship is so marvelous. On my planet we had to fight for every inch of space!" O'Donna stated with angry conviction in her voice.All the while, something doesn't feel right to me. Call it my captain's hunch. I look up at the viewscreen and notice that the stars are in the wrong configurations. O'Donna is still trying to convince me to forget about my crew and that we could have a life together which of course, I cannot accept!What she didn't understand is, I already have a woman, and that woman is the Enterprise! But O'Donna is so sincere and it is easy to slip into her embrace. We were in such an embrace when all of a sudden, we hear a THUD!! THUD!! It is like a thousand heartbeats pounding on the ship's hull. We run to another viewscreen, which I turn on and the field of stars melts away to reveal hundreds of compressed angular faces looking in on us!At this point, my dream differs from the episode. Instead of seeing hundreds of compressed green angular faces looking at me, I saw question marks where their faces should be, of all the people I was to meet during my college years. It was down right unnerving and scary!It took me years to make some sense of the impact that particular dream had on my future back then, but I have done so in the following poem: The Mark of Gideon OR A Review of the College Life
T-- Time, for new experiences to be made.H-- History will be made on the spot, as each day goes by.E-- Everyone says: "These are the best days of your life."M-- Mysteries of College Life unfold,A-- As anxiety takes hold, questions arise; from "Will I make friends? To the all time cafeteria question: What is today's mystery food? To What grades will I get?"R-- Realizing I'm out on my own; sometimes relying on the K-- Kindness of strangers.O-- Observing and participating fully in college life from,F-- Freshman to Senior, studies then frolicking in the sun.G-- Gorgeous Southern women or studies, was always theI -- indecisive collegiate D-- debate. Studies won out the majority vote most times, at least in my case. E-- Every parent would vote for "studies," I know.O-- "Only in a world of Mr. Spocks' would studies be fully appreciated," they would say.N-- "Naturally, I will kindly reply, however, he also could not deny the laws of physics, especially within himself. Try as he might, being half-human. Remember?"
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