Future doesn’t worry Star Trek fan

Flashback: This story appeared in the May 27, 1994, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

Doug Graham loves Star Trek, but insists he’s just a fan, not a fanatic.

His words are not entirely convincing, especially as he says them he’s also wearing a Starfleet uniform.

“And every once in a while I’ll spout off something about Trek no one cares about,” he says, immediately drifting into a recitation on warp propulsion systems.

Ask him if he plans to attend this weekend’s Star Trek convention in Spokane, his fifth, and he’ll reply, “Does a Klingon have a bumpy forehead?”

Graham explains there are three degrees of Trek fans — the “Trekkies,” who watch the series and accumulate some Trek paraphernalia; the “Trekkors” who attend conventions and sink serious bucks into collectibles; and “those who have gone over the Cardassian border.”

This last group lives and breathes Star Trek and would probably eat and drink it, too, if they could find the recipe for Klingon blood pie or pick up a six pack of Romulan ale.

The 29-year-old Graham, of Lewiston, probably fits somewhere in the middle group. Well, maybe not.

“He’s loved it all his life,” says his mom, Fay Graham. “When (the show) is on, he can say the words as they say them. A friend was here one night when it was on and he said, ‘Fay, he scares me.’”

Fay herself is an original Star Trek fan who passes on wearing a uniform, but admits to owning a nightshirt that reads “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Graham, who works as a custodian, concedes he’s a “nut.” But his obsession with Star Trek may not be so crazy. The phenomena that is Trek has made collectibles from the TV series and movies hot properties that will only appreciate in value.

That’s good news for someone who has spent up to $5,000 during the past several years buying Enterprise models, plastic figures of Picard, et. al., plus books, video tapes, comics, magazines, autographed photos, miniature ships, Christmas tree ornaments, computer games, assorted phasers and tricorders and a bridge with the complete cast of “Next Generation.”

He even has the first year of “Next Generation” on tape, sent to him by an out-of-state relative. The show wasn’t broadcast in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley until its second year.

His most extravagant purchase is his set of porcelain figures from The Danbury Mint. That’s taken him a while to collect, and he still needs Uhura.

His most prized piece of Trek, however, carries no price tag. It’s the wooden phaser he made himself in high school shop class. He’s also fashioned himself a Borg outfit, made with sewer pipe, shoulder pads, a catcher’s mask, lights and film canisters.

Graham wore the outfit to KATW-FM’s annual Halloween costume contest.

“I got beat by a tube of toothpaste,” he says with some indignation.

Graham’s love affair with Star Trek began at the early age of 2, when he would park himself in front of the TV when his parents tuned into the original series.

He likes the “odd man out” characters best — Spock from the original series, Data from “Next Generation” and Odo and Quark from “Deep Space Nine.”

Is the series end of “Next Generation,” his favorite, cause for a red alert?

Yes and no, he says. He is wearing a black band around his communicator pin as a sign of mourning, but is philosophical about the series’ demise.

“It will live on. That’s what reruns are for.”