Sunday, January 04, 2009

A KINGLY GIFT

A group of us convened at the home of our friends Laura Belle and Donnie Joe yesterday evening, there to have dinner and admire pictures of Laura Belle’s new grand-niece.

Laura Belle and Donnie Joe are friends of long standing. We met them early on in our first Atlanta-area sojourn in the early 1980’s - they lived across the street back then, and it did not take long for us to become Good Buddies. The ladies got along...and Donnie Joe’s bookshelf looked an awful lot like mine. Lots of good SF, and a growing collection of Stephen King novels...fertile soil in which a friendship lasting over a quarter-century began to put down roots.

But for today’s purposes, I must point out that Donnie Joe is a Star Trek fan of the first water. Not one of those Deep-End Trekkies that goes to conventions, mind you. He’s a relatively sober individual who happens to like Star Trek - one of the rare television series that, despite its many flaws, brought a certain amount of respectability to the TV-SF genre.

And so the gift that was gifted unto him this Christmas had a special significance. Here it be:

Star Trek Pez
“I’m a PEZ dispenser, Jim, not a doctor!”

Star Trek PEZ Dispensers!

I actually felt a pang of envy, if only for a brief moment...

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