Long ago, in graduate school, I started watching repeats of old Star Trek episodes. Back in those olden days, before Netflix and Amazon Prime, the only way to see television shows was to pay ungodly sums of money for entire seasons on VHS tapes. Unless you had a brother, like I did, who could *ahem* procure the shows for you through more nefarious means. Ah, the good old days of BitTorrent.
Since I had all these great episodes burned on CDs, I started sharing them with a few people, who also became enamored of Star Trek. (This is, in fact, how I gained a reputation among a select audience as a dealer, as I pushed my addictive product). A few of us came up with the idea of meeting together weekly, to watch a few episodes and drink beer.
After a few years, I moved away and started attending virtually, through video chats. Since academia requires a lot of moving, this weekly connection was an important chance to see old friends, as we moved for post-docs, temporarily lived apart from spouses, and moved again for yet another position.
Time passed. One couple joined the group, and one left. Babies were born, and people died. We bought houses, took permanent jobs, and still kept coming back every Tuesday night to chat with friends about our lives, watch one episode of Star Trek, and then carefully ignore every law of physics that was violated.
This year marked our tenth anniversary. Because I'm a complete dork who convenes committees and writes press releases and white papers for a living, I wrote up a tenth anniversary report detailing the history of the group. Because my friend T is equally dorky, he drafted a timeline, complete with Star Trek references, and soon there will be a commemorative t-shirt. It's hard to describe what this group has meant to me through the years. They've provided companionship when I moved to a new city, alone as a post-doc, and they've provided comfort after my husband died. It just goes to show that you can find community almost anywhere, even around the nucleus of illegally obtained sci-fi television shows from the 90's.
5 comments:
Truly amazing! It is great that we can find community in so many places.
It's wonderful to keep those connections. Support groups are always needed.
I, as a person who has almost no long-term relationships other than my family, find it totally amazing.
It's so good to keep in touch though not always easy when you have a busy lifestyle. The T shirts are a great idea - here's to the next ten years.
that is so beautiful! All through the power of illegally acquired media.
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