A long time ago, in what really is a galaxy far far away Star Trek did not exist on the internet and fandom was conducted by hunting and gathering. First, you needed money in order to obtain fandom and then you needed to be near actual resources of the fandom. Fandom also arrived in the mail though as akid this took an enormous amount of wrangling with parents to achieve.. I think I was 20 before I realized that writing a check was not on par with filling out a multiple paged government form. Having the 5.95 required for a fandom related subscription was the easy part, getting my parents to write a check was a herculean task. Because of this fandom for me consisted almost entirely of B. Dalton's bookstore but that wasn't really fandom.. once all 20 something Trek books in existence had been purchased the only thing left to do was look at new covers of the books I already had.
But then the most amazing thing happened. I discovered Sha Ka Ree only a bus ride away. It was..
THE STAR TREK STORE.
Otherwise known as The Federation Trading Post. I am thrilled to find these photos from Doug Drexler of that wonderful little hole in the wall treasure palace. Fanzines galore! Hilarious stickers! Mini view finders! I still have the one I bought with a photo from The Paradise Syndrome in it. Masks, props, and many many posters. T-shirts. Greeting cards. It was absolutely wonderful.
In the middle of it was a barrel of tribbles. One of the tribbles I bought from this barrel is still with me (sadly, sterile).
Such great memories! That store had more Trek stuff in one place than I've seen at any convention. TOS heyday I guess.. and a lot of fun it was.
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