I often called him Leib, his Yiddish name, picking up on the term of endearment used by his wife, Susan. We were friends for more than 25 years, the trailing spouses of the even longer friendship between our wives. I was not a Trekkie (or Trekker, to use the term Leonard preferred). I didn’t watch the original “Star Trek” series on television in the 1960s and I saw only one of the movies. We were just friends.
I did have conversations with him from time to time about the character of Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared half-human, half-Vulcan, who was a relentlessly logical alien who denied all emotion but fell in love with an earthling. I sensed he identified with the otherness of Spock, the ultimate outsider, so much so that he was conflicted about the character and Spock’s hold on him — themes he explored in his two dichotomously titled books, “I am Not Spock,” then 20 years later, “I am Spock.”
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