{"id":16740,"date":"2008-12-20T14:30:10","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=16740"},"modified":"2014-12-10T18:04:48","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T23:04:48","slug":"do-you-know-whats-in-the-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/20\/do-you-know-whats-in-the-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you know what’s in the tree?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I heard that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry<\/a> had died, I immediately remembered the first time I’d met her, which sent me scurrying back to the autographs I’d gathered as a teen at my early conventions. What I found, which you can see at right (click to view at a larger size), showed that what I’d always thought occurred never did, that I hadn’t<\/i> met her when I thought I had.<\/p>\n

The image I’d always held in my mind was very specific. It was back at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in 1972, either at the first Star Trek<\/i> convention or a Creation Con, and if I close my eyes I can even see the interior of the small room where I filled this page, which was off a corridor near the elevators. Yet when I found this sheet which was supposed to contain her signature, her name was nowhere to be seen. <\/p>\n

\"1972StarTrekConvention\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Ah, fickle memory!<\/p>\n

But as you can see, writers and future SFWA Grand Masters Hal Clement and Isaac Asimov were there (the tradition of a SFWA Grand Master hadn’t even begun as yet), along with Star Trek<\/i> scripter D. C. Fontana and Desilu executive Oscar Katz. Of the four, Katz was probably the most important to Star Trek<\/i>, for without him, the show might never have made it on the air in the first place.<\/p>\n

As I look at Fontana’s inscription, I find that I’m not entirely sure what it means, Oh, I know all about “live long and prosper,” it’s in in my blood, but where does “and know what’s in the tree” come from? Is it a line from the original series I can no longer remember? Is it a quote from some other TV show, from a movie, or from literature, science fictional or otherwise?<\/p>\n

Googling avails me nothing. Searching for “know what’s in the tree” yields a total of five results. Eliminating the apostrophe and searching for “know what is in the tree” yields only two<\/i>. And all the results seem literal, rather than metaphorical. <\/p>\n

Because the phrase is nearly internet invisible, I suspect that it’s not an allusion. But what is it? Am I missing something obvious?<\/p>\n

Do you know what’s in the tree?<\/p>\n

If so, let me know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I heard that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry had died, I immediately remembered the first time I’d met her, which sent me scurrying back to the autographs I’d gathered as a teen at my early conventions. What I found, which you can see at right (click to view at a larger size), showed that what I’d always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[58,201],"class_list":["post-16740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conventions","tag-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16742,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16740\/revisions\/16742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}