I thought I would start featuring one tasty morsel of language per week – like a Hershey’s kiss for the mind. Of course, these will have something to do with me, this being the place where I go on and on about me. But if anyone wants to add their own word that is a favorite, brings back memories, captures a story’s glimmer, or something, feel free.

Today’s word: trek.

I knew the meaning before fourth grade, having come across it in dog stories, I’m sure, but if I’m remembering right, the year I was nine we discovered Star Trek. Uncle Tim visited our home. He was the coolest uncle because, all of fourteen himself, he paid us attention. Uncle Tim urged us to watch this great space show with a neat alien guy who had pointy ears and green blood.

After we became Trek fans, I owned a new reason to feel superior. No one else in fourth grade could say the show’s name. They thought they could. “Beam me up, Scotty, like on Star Track!” they’d call across the playground. I smirked. They were idiots.

If this had been first grade, I would have lorded my correct English over them, as I had in Oklahoma, trying to teach neighborhood boys where we lived not to say “ain’t.” But by now I recognized it was pointless to put yourself out there. People, I was learning, didn’t care in general about using language correctly. They also were likely to call me names. Smarty pants and so on. I had become aware of the crowd, the uneducated masses, and I respected their power.

It would be more than a decade before I decided it might have been nicer growing up to live in a less high and mighty bubble around other kids. Maybe I could have been more friendly, less off in my imagination despising my fellow humans. By then I guessed I hadn’t followed the Star Trek spirit very well. And I struggled, like that alien guy with the pointy ears often did, to try learning to play well with others.