As a kid back in the '70s, one of the most exciting moments of my early Star Trek passion was the arrival of my catalog from Lincoln Enterprises. It was printed on very cheap pulp paper, and wasn't bound but rather folded several times into about 4 inches square. And I treasured it. Lincoln Enterprises was the one source at the time for devotees like myself to get the real juicy Star Trek merchandise — not model kits and books that you could buy in the stores, but the even cooler stuff you couldn't get anywhere else, like pins, medallions, belt buckles ... the original "Star Trek Concordance" and 3rd Season Supplement ... and scripts and writer's guides. (My first purchases were the Concordance and Supplement, a tribble and an IDIC medallion—my first true collectibles.)

So imagine what a thrill it was to have the opportunity to visit the very operation that was such a big part of my childhood. And doubly so since that operation is now run by the progeny of the great Gene Roddenberry, a name which means so much to my life as well as so many others'.

Nestled in a warehouse district deep within the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Lincoln Enterprises is now a revitalized business after being virtually dormant for a decade. And it has become so thanks to the tender loving care of Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Jr. — who commonly goes by the name Rod.

"Straight from the source" is Rod's own description of what makes Lincoln Enterprises a special place from which to order merchandise. Because it's associated with the Roddenberry name, you know what you're getting is the real McCoy (...pun intended). It's a family business, literally, operating via a special relationship with Viacom Consumer Products (VCP), the licensing division at Paramount Pictures. It's had its ups and downs over the years but has always been there for the fans, first and foremost ... and really, for no other reason.

"We don't have that much money. I don't get a paycheck. I'm just in here trying to make this thing succeed," Rod says of the endeavor that he took over about a year ago and has been reorganizing ever since. "That's what I want, success not money. Because it's a family business, and because I know the fans want it." ("The family's already got money," he assures.)

What's unique about Lincoln Enterprises — unlike, say, the Fan Club Store and Star Trek: The Experience — is that it predates any other outlet that offers Star Trek merchandise, and in fact predates VCP itself. Thus it has special license to do the things it's been doing since the beginning (1968, halfway through the Original Series run), such as selling copies of scripts and writer's guides ... fashioning and selling specialized jewelry, patches and other accessories ... and offering manuals, blueprints, stationery, and a plethora of other collectibles. (And not just for Star Trek, but to a lesser degree also for other Roddenberry-related properties such as Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict.)

In fact, Rod is determined to shepherd this 34-year-old venture (somewhat older than he is) into the 21st century. He's done this by bringing it all online, merging it with Roddenberry.com to create the "Roddenberry Store" (http://store.roddenberry.com/), complete with a new logo and a slick modernistic design. While he still distributes a hard-copy catalog (which is now professionally printed and bound, by the way), the Web site is the most up-to-date source of information on merchandise availability and prices. And of course, you can purchase directly from the Web site through secure e-commerce transactions. Or you can stick with the traditional mail-order method, whichever you like.

Rod took the reins of this enterprise from his mother, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who had been the driving force behind the company from the beginning. But as the years went by, Majel took less and less of an active role, leaving the daily work to a few friends of the family who volunteered their help to fulfill orders and manage the inventory. But as licenses for other merchandisers blossomed in the '90s, there was no concerted effort to modernize or keep up with the competition.

When Rod stepped in last year (after leaving his post as technical advisor on Earth: Final Conflict), he faced a warehouse full of disorganized inventory, antiquated equipment (such as collating machines the size of a small car), and unfulfilled orders. He and a new management team spent six months just organizing the place, replacing the collating machines with modern copiers, and computerizing the operation. "It looks like hell now, but you should have seen it before," he claims. (Actually, it looks pretty organized to me.)

And then on January 1, 2002, the new on-line presence was launched. As with any commercial Web site, it took some time to flush out all the bugs. But now, Rod believes, the company is operating at full potential.

Even though he's adopted the moniker Roddenberry Store and primarily goes by Roddenberry.com at conventions and on his business card, Rod is not dropping the name Lincoln Enterprises. "That's been around for [almost] 35 years," he says. "There are a lot of people who know it that way, and I don't want to take away that piece of history." So officially it's Lincoln Enterprises dba Roddenberry.com, which "brings it home to the family."

"He sold his idea to the United States, so maybe that's what my dad set out to do also."

But it begs the question, why did Gene and Majel name it "Lincoln Enterprises" in the first place? "I get that question a lot, and my mother gave me a vague answer once: My father really admired President Lincoln." (As did Captain Kirk, you might recall from "The Savage Curtain.") "I don't know the actual reason why he said, 'I want to name it after Lincoln' — I just know that there's definitely a connection." He conjectures that it had something to do with Lincoln being "a good salesman." "He sold his idea to the United States, so maybe that's what my dad set out to do also." (Gene's hero, Kirk's ship ... you can do the math.)

The warehouse is a veritable candy store for those who love Star Trek. On one side there are rows of shelves holding copies of every Star Trek script ever produced for TV, from "The Cage" to "Shockwave" (and the movies, too). There are rows of cabinets full of pins and jewelry shaped like the Original Series communicator, like the Next Generation combadges, and like the Starship Enterprise herself. (The communicator pins actually open up.) Rod has genuine Bajoran earrings — made by the same company who manufactured them for the show, he says — and several forms and sizes of the Vulcan IDIC symbol (although none exactly like the medallion I got in the 70's!). There are even plates for light switches and electrical outlets designed like control panels on the Enterprise-D. And T-shirts galore, from the classic "Star Trek Lives" to new ones celebrating the latest Star Trek incarnation with the NX-01 logo. And don't forget patches, so the rest of the world can tell whether you're Command, Sciences or Engineering ... Federation, Klingon or Borg.

In the back there are posters, decals and stickers, caps, models, games, large snowglobes with the Enterprise and Klingon ships inside ... and tribbles. Lots and lots of tribbles. (Naturally — they're born to reproduce!) "Yeah, we've got our Vulcan tribbles, our Klingon tribbles ... " Oh really? Apparently that's not a joke on the Roddenberrys' part — it was by design from the show itself ("The Trouble With Tribbles" and "Trials and Tribble-ations"). "There is an actual reason for having orange and green tribbles," Rod says, but since he wasn't around at the time he doesn't know what that reason is.

The tribble has been a staple of this company since the very early days (as I can personally corroborate). In fact, when Deep Space Nine made its follow-up tribble episode, Lincoln helped to supply the show with several bins of the furry balls. Then when shooting was done, they gave them back, so Lincoln got to sell actual show tribbles! (Their agents demanded higher salaries, though.) Now Rod and his mom both just like having fun with the tribble concept. Majel decided to put eyes on some of them — coupling them up, one with blue eyes and one with brown, and naming them George and Gracie after the whales in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home."

"The pink ones that you saw are my idea," Rod says. "I took about 10 of them— I was trying to make 'angry' tribbles, and I was trying to make them red. Unfortunately I just came up with gay tribbles. Which, you know, there's a market for that too..."

Where does he get these things made when he has an idea for a new design or a new item? Part of Rod's business is picking manufacturers, and that's an ongoing activity. There's no short list of suppliers; he's always looking for the most competitive deal from around the globe — "as long as it's not a sweatshop." Again, he uses the Internet to conduct business 21st-century style. When he designs a new auto decal, for instance, he'll do a search for "custom vinyl decal" and find a list of vendors that he will then e-mail and get quotes from. "It's just about that easy. Not like the old days — phone book, phone calls, go down to the company, it may be in Taiwan, who knows ... " His main challenge is getting a good deal on small quantities — for new items he usually orders between 50 and 300, until he knows what will take off and what won't.

So what are the popular items? "Most of them surprise me. For example, the Voyager communicator. I thought the Next Generation communicator would be the hottest. But the Voyager one, it's just out the door constantly." What surprises him most is the popularity of patterns. "It shocked the hell out of me — you might want to edit that word out — but patterns are one of our biggest sellers," he says (unedited). "What we have are patterns for costumes — from the Original Series, from "The Motion Picture," from Next Generation, from Deep Space Nine, you name it."

"...They love to build them, and they love to build them accurately."

"Basically, fans love to not just wear the costumes, they love to build them. And they love to build them accurately. So what we've done over the years is, we've gotten Bob Blackman or whoever in Wardrobe to actually supply us with the physical costume. Then we take it to a professional pattern maker to make a pattern from it, and we have it duplicated and we sell it to fans." (He wishes he could get the actual original pattern, but there's some restriction against that.) "They come with directions, and they tell you what sort of materials to use and what color and all that."

The newest pattern he's having created is a Klingon uniform, derived from the first contemporary example of that costume: the outfit worn by Mark Lenard in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The same pattern was repurposed in TNG, with a few extra medallions added, Rod says. "It's a very complex costume as you can imagine."

The patterns have, in the past, been produced pretty cheaply, with the directions printed onto the sheet itself. "But that's a little too 'garage' for me," Rod says, explaining his plan to turn this popular item into something more professional and colorful. "We're putting books together that explain the history, idea, and details of the costume. When someone pays $12 — for the Klingon ones, it's going to be like $19 or $20 — I want the directions to be printed, I want them to come in a book, I want it to look nice, I want someone to feel like they got something worth $20." After all, he notes, it could cost the customer a few hundred bucks more to make the costume, particularly the Klingon one.

That's the kind of devotion and consideration to the fans that Rod Roddenberry feels is his legacy. "Star Trek's done so much for people. I'm not into it because it's sci-fi entertainment; I'm into it because it's touched lives. It's made people hope for a better future."

And the future is where his sights are set. Once he can elevate Lincoln Enterprises to be self-sustaining and even profitable, he hopes to branch off into charitable endeavors, such as producing audio readings of Star Trek scripts for the blind, and to be more involved in the convention circuit. He is also expanding the role of Roddenberry.com, starting with chats, plus he's got a few special surprises in the works. "I just want the Roddenberry name to be known as well as Star Trek. There's so much praise for my father, I want to make sure that lives on as long as Star Trek does."

"I've got it right here, I've got the truth."

To that end, one of his most ambitious dreams is to someday gather all of the original documents and other notable family possessions pertaining to Star Trek lore, and compile them both physically and digitally into a library ... and maybe even a museum.

"There are a lot of storage facilities which I'm sure have a goldmine ... and I've only glanced at them. Majel is very protective about a lot of those things, even from me." Rod says he would never auction off his dad's stuff or try to profit from it, but he does want to share it with the world. For instance, "I have Bob Justman's second revision notes of Harlan Ellison's 'The City on the Edge of Forever' — I have the actual yellow carbon paper of his notes for it. And I loved reading that, because I've seen some of the books that people have written bashing each other and stuff like that — and you know what, I've got it right here, I've got the truth."

Rod would also like to someday get back into the Hollywood game. After some disappointing experiences with other shows that carry his father's name but which he had little power to influence, he hopes in the future to develop ideas for television that better represent the family. "We're not talking about just ethics and morals throughout the whole thing ... After you write the excellent story with the cool idea and the ethical human issues, then you can throw in the car chase and the big-breasted blonde who falls in love with the hero — of course, sure, no problem! But, you know, we'll see. Until I'm out there producing and I have a credit to my name ... we'll see. I can preach about it right now all I want."

In the meantime, Rod is trying to spread the word about Lincoln Enterprises and Roddenberry.com. "Come check out the site. If you don't want to buy something, come to the chat. Tell me how much you hate Earth: Final Conflict, I don't care. Just know that we exist. Give us ideas for merchandise and we'll make some!"

Oh, and I can't finish talking about this "family business" until I mention one of the most important staff members walking around the warehouse — Rod's three-legged Shepherd/Rottweiler mix, Orion. "He's the love of my life. He's 9½ years old. He had cancer in his back leg and we had to have that removed. But he's doing so much better. It was really heartbreaking, but we're amazed — he walked out of the hospital the next day. He's such a strong boy." If you ever meet Orion, just remember that he LOVES to be scratched behind his left ear ... because without his left hind leg he can't do it himself. Then you can be part of the family too!