Marching to a different drum, I hear a different song

Saturday, June 15, 2019 Riverside Iowa

A change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that’s all.

The last time I rode a bicycle into work along LSD into the loop was the summer of 2018. Prior to that I biked pretty much the same route for 6 years to the west loop.. Now I’ll be biking into the west loop again as I begin my new career venture. After 20 years in Executive Search/Recruiting and Staffing the current employment environment has decided it is time that I move along. This morning I took a test run to see how the changes along the trail and downtown cross streets will affect my commute.

The new location in the west loop

As I was out on Bike O Negative Melita had the morning off and took another legal exam with the help of the always attentive Spooky!

Riverside Iowa

Riverside is a city in rural Washington County, Iowa, United States, along the English River on Iowa Highway 22. It is part of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, asserts in his book The Making of Star Trek that the character of James Tiberius Kirk was born in the state of Iowa. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Kirk himself tells Dr. Taylor he is from Iowa.

In March 1985, when the city was looking for a theme for its annual town festival, Steve Miller, a member of the Riverside City Council who had read Roddenberry’s book, suggested to the council that Riverside should proclaim itself to be the future birthplace of Kirk. Miller’s motion passed unanimously.

This birthplace was confirmed as canonical in season 2, episode 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as when asked, Kirk states he was born in Riverside, IA. Additionally, at least two Star Trek novels had material based in the real city of Riverside. Best Destiny, an immediate sequel to the events shown in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, depicted Kirk’s childhood in Riverside. The novel’s opening chapter depicts a pre-teen Kirk, playing with friends in fields, in rushes and river wetland along the English River. Another novel, Final Frontier by Diane Carey, not to be confused with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, was written as a prequel novel to the original series. Depicting the space adventures of James T. Kirk’s father, Commander George Samuel Kirk Sr., the opening and closing passages of the novel depict Captain Kirk, now an adult, mulling over his Starfleet career options shortly after his first five-year mission. The younger Kirk was also depicted, walking around the farmhouse owned by his family in Riverside. Its wrap-around veranda had views of both the English River and the Iowa River to the east, which mirror the site of the real “Kirk’s Birthstone” marker.

The 2009 film Star Trek, set in an alternate reality from the main Star Trek universe, shows that Kirk was born aboard a shuttlecraft in space and raised in Iowa. Nearby are the (fictional) Riverside Quarry, where young Jim Kirk destroys a 20th-century Chevy Corvette in an act of vandalism, and the Riverside Shipyards, identified by name by Captain Christopher Pike as the construction site of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), and an embarkation point for Starfleet Academy recruits, including an older Jim Kirk.

During a September 28, 2004, town meeting, the city learned that its residents had become the unwitting stars of a Spike TV reality show called Invasion Iowa inspired by the Kirk connection. Over a week earlier, actor William Shatner had arrived in the city under the guise of filming a science fiction movie called Invasion Iowa.

The Voyage Home Riverside History Center is also colloquially referred to as the “Star Trek Museum”. It houses Star Trek themed exhibits and memorabilia, including a time capsule; a Star Trek-themed bathroom; and an exhibit about the women of Star Trek. The museum features a veterans display and a room dedicated to the history of Riverside.^[ The museum also has displays featuring Leonard Nimoy, the various Star Trek franchise television shows, NASA, William Shatner‘s visit to Riverside,^[and others. Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov in the original series, visited the Museum when it first opened on June 27, 2008, where he participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony.