Sometimes inconsequential events in our lives stand out later as important milestones. I was nine years old in fourth grade In November, 1966, when I watched my very first Star Trek episode, The Corbormite Maneuver.

I wasn’t old enough to join NASA and explore space, but a young man can dream. Mom had taken me out of third grade in Tucson, AZ., in May to run off to Winnipeg, Ontario, Canada with an artist named Robert Scott. Mom left Robert Scott in Canada, took his last name, and we spent the rest of the summer shuttling between a forest near Taos, New Mexico, and a Holiday Inn in Albuquerque. I never knew how Mom paid for our room at the Holiday Inn. She said the assistant manager liked her. After GMAC repossessed Mom’s car, I started fourth grade in Albuquerque.

We stayed in Albuquerque until November. I don’t know why we left, but Mom always said we were bohemians. This time, we flew on a real airplane to Phoenix and moved in with Grandma and her sister, Aunt Billy.

Aunt Billy had a huge color TV, and sitting in front of her TV one evening, I saw an ad for a new show named Star Trek. Set in the future, the show was about the captain and crew of the Starship Enterprise and their five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. I counted the days, hours, and minutes for the upcoming episode. If I could only watch Star Trek, I could put up no friends, no place to play, restrictions on what I could touch, what rooms I could enter, and more. Just, please, let me watch Star Trek.

The big evening finally came. Mom turned on the TV–I wasn’t allowed to touch it–and turned to the correct channel. The theme song and opening scenes with the Enterprise flying in from corners of the screen played, and the show started. I was on the edge of my seat. Captain Kirk walked out of a turbo lift onto the bridge, the camera facing Captain Kirk as he set his jaw and scanned the bridge. The camera angle shifted to what Captain Kirk saw, and, wow. There was the view screen, helm control, navigation, science stations, and the Captain’s chair right in the middle. Lt. Uhura worked at her communications station, Mr. Sulu waited for orders, Mr. Spock was there to analyze everything, and Captain Kirk was in charge.

And then the trouble started. Aunt Billy said she wanted to watch something else, and so she got up and changed channels. I wanted to scream, but Mom gave me a look that said, “shut up.” So I held my tongue and skulked out of the living room and into our bedroom and bawled. Grandma must have persuaded Aunt Billy to change the channel back, because somehow, I watched the rest of the show.

Four hundred lives depended on my judgment while Kirk and McCoy argued about Bailey and the First Federation threatened to blow up the Enterprise. Not chess, Mr. Spock. Poker. And I’ll get back a better officer after Mr. Bailey finishes his time with Balok.

A little while later, Grandma and Aunt Billy got into a huge fight. I walked out to the living room to see what was going on, but Mom guided me back to the bedroom and told me to stay there. The fight got louder and went on for a long time. I asked Mom about that fight years later as a young adult. Why would two sisters who lived together suddenly be at each other’s throats? It turned out, the fight was over Mom and me. Aunt Billy wanted us out; Grandma wanted us to stay because we had nowhere to go.

Aunt Billy won that battle. Mom and I left and moved in with a cocktail waitress across town named Barbara Casintini.

About a year later, we had our own apartment and I fought a high fever. While lying in bed, that huge First Federation ship flew into my room and right into my face. It filled my vision, just like it filled the screen on the show, and it talked to me. Until it faded away and the voice turned out to be Mom. That was the only time a fever ever made me delirious, and of all the places my mind could have picked, it took me to that Star Trek episode.

Today, every time I see The Corbormite Maneuver, I return to that night as a scrawny nine-year-old with no permanent address who learned to live vicariously on the Enterprise bridge exploring the stars.

I found Star Trek in syndication In high school, and the high point of my day was catching an episode every afternoon before Mom and her husband, Joe, got drunk and I escaped to the basement. My life was complete when I finally watched The Tholian Web from start to finish.

I spent many years sitting in the captain’s chair on the Enterprise bridge, making decisions that would decide the fate of the galaxy while drifting to sleep at night in my bed. Yeah, I didn’t get out much. But looking back, now I understand how great stories can help shape scrawny kids with self-esteem issues. More than half a century later, I still want to boldly go where no-one has gone before.

We need more inspiration like that today. As a writer, I’ll keep trying to do my part.