AirLockAlpha.com

In 1999, I had a chance to interview Majel Barrett Roddenberry.

It was a big move for me. Airlock Alpha then was still a very small, fledgling site known as SyFy World, and the interview was actually not even part of this site, but instead, something to be featured in an online newsletter I ran with Brian Meskimen known as the Earth: Final Conflict Galactic Newsletter.

I was so nervous as I dialed the number her assistant had given me. She was expecting my call first thing in the morning on the east coast, so it had to be before sunrise out in California.

I expected that I would be calling the assistant directly, and she would connect me with Majel, but instead, Majel herself answered the phone. She didn't seem to know who I was at first, and apparently had been out in the garden in something that seemed obvious more important than talking to me.

I didn't even get a question out before she asked me what "magazine" I was writing for. I told her it was the Earth: Final Conflict Galactic Newsletter, and she seemed confused. She had never heard of it, and was wondering where she could pick it up.

"Oh, you can't pick it up anywhere," I said. "People subscribe to it online. For free."

"For free? Online? Why am I even talking to you?"

That was a good question that I actually had to stop and ponder for a second, but before she could answer, I started asking questions of my own. Majel obviously felt duped in talking to some lowly online publication, which was keeping her away from her garden, but she was gracious enough to spend about 30 minutes on the phone, answering my questions about the Star Trek franchise, where "Earth: Final Conflict" was going, and even gave me the final name of the main character on the yet-to-be-released "Andromeda" -- Dylan Hunt.

So it was an interview that definitely was worth doing, and gave me a fun story to share over the next decade or so, including right here in this space.

At the same time, it's just so hard to believe that this very woman, who was a wonderful mother to Rod Roddenberry, who himself would later become a longtime friend to Airlock Alpha, who was a wonderful actress, who was a wonderful true torchbearer of the Gene Roddenberry philosophy, and who was amazing with the fans -- Majel is no longer with us. And although my interactions with her was limited to simply a phone call early one morning in the final months of the 20th century, I miss her, as millions of Star Trek fans across the country have as well.

It's real sad that more people didn't listen to what Star Trek's First Lady had to say.

"The public may be a little tired of 'Star Trek,'" Mrs. Roddenberry said once. "They'll watch the reruns, but as far as anything new is concerned ... the idea is to give it a rest."

Mrs. Roddenberry told that to a reporter from the Seattle Times back in 1998, when "Star Trek" Voyager" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" were on the air, and Paramount Television just couldn't get enough of the franchise her late husband created.

If only we had heeded those words a decade ago ... maybe we wouldn't be hedging the future of Star Trek on a single movie coming out in May.

I just wanted to close with a great bit of dialogue from Mrs. Roddenberry's alter ego, Lwaxana Troi, that I dug up on Internet Movie Database. It's from the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Dark Page."

"Aren't you going to mingle, Mr. Woof?" Lwaxana asked Lt. Worf, as they peered at the Cairn socializing around them.

"I don't care for telepaths," he said. "They make me ... uneasy."

"Oh, don't worry," Troi said. "The Cairn couldn't read your thoughts even if they wanted to. Your brain isn't sophisticated enough."

Only Majel could deliver that line perfectly, and God speed to her.

Michael Hinman is the site coordinator for Airlock Alpha, writing out of Tampa, Fla. He can be reached at mhinman@airlockalpha.com.