Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site decwrl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!wahid@dvinci.DEC (Parwez Wahid)
From: wahid@dvinci.DEC (Parwez Wahid)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: In the middle
Message-ID: <79@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Aug-85 09:44:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.79
Posted: Thu Aug 22 09:44:45 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 04:17:58 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 23


	Reply to George Raiche's inquiry

	I was on a trivia panel at a convention in Boston in 1983.  Some
	kid in the audience stumped the three of us with this question.

	Yes the gravestone does read James R. Kirk.  This show being the
	second pilot they (the production folks) probably hadn't given
	much thought to what the middle name was going to be.  I suppose
	the T for Tiberius came in later after Star Trek got the OK to
	be a regular t.v. series.  So how does one explain the "R" on the
	gravestone?

	Well you figure Gary Mitchell used his powers to create the
	tomb and despite being such a good friend of Kirk's he never
	knew Kirk's middle name, or had always mistaken Kirk's middle
	name for Rodney (no respect) or Rogers (as in mister).  Or
	as a joke Mitchell used to refer to Kirk as the big "J.R."
	(Mitchell must have got hooked onto some 20th century entertainment
	tapes about the lives of rich oil people living in Texas.)

	Parwez Wahid
	DEC, Marlboro MA