My dinner with Al

The UACC autograph show in 2006 was in San Antonio, which is a four-to-five hour drive from Dallas. The show in Burbank was a lot of fun, so I knew I couldn’t miss this one. The announced guest list had several people I hadn’t met or didn’t have in my The Home Planet, which made it even better.

I rode down with Jerry and Mary and their granddaughter Lexi on Friday. The setup for this whole trip is Jerry is known to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF) people these days as a “high roller”. He has purchased several things over the last couple of years in their auctions, including dinner with Wally Schirra and a stay on a Sealab-type submersible with Scott Carpenter. Cool stuff.

The first thing we did after getting to the hotel was go to the bar. A cold one was definitely high on the list for me after several hours in the car. In addition, we’ve had a lot of luck meeting astronauts in bars, so it seemed like the right thing to do. We certainly weren’t disappointed. Both Wally Schirra and Al Worden recognized Jerry so we talked with them for a while. We also ran into Sy Liebergot and chatted with him. About this time, Jerry and Mary had to leave for the platinum reception. Not having anything better to do, I stayed at the bar and talked with a few of the other collectors that had shown up.

After the reception was over, Jerry called and told me they were going to supper with Linn LeBlanc and Dee Campbell, both from the ASF. We wandered over a good part of the Riverwalk without finding anything we wanted, eventually ending up at Morton’s Steakhouse where Al Worden joined us. We spent the next couple of hours eating, telling stories and having a wonderful time with them. Al is an absolute hoot to be around. We finally left and ended up back at the hotel bar where we spent the rest of the evening. At this point, it’s maybe 1AM and my trip has already been a huge success. You just don’t get many opportunities like this. In addition, I was on a first name basis with Al, Linn and Dee for the rest of the weekend.

Anyway, later that morning the autograph show started. There were four separate rooms; a large main room and three smaller rooms. One of the rooms was left empty so the collectors had a place to sit and organize things, which was a nice idea. There weren’t as many people there as there were in Burbank and there were very few lines. I think I was done by noon. I picked up a copy of Liebergot’s book, got Alexei Leonov to autograph my copy of Two Sides Of The Moon, and got several autographs in my The Home Planet: Valentina Tereshkova, Pavel Popovich, Gene Krantz, Brian Binnie, Edgar Mitchell, Buzz Aldrin, and Al Worden. I was absolutely tongue-tied around Valentina Tereshkova, which was okay since she doesn’t speak much English. Neither does Pavel Popovich, but I got the distinct impression that he’s a real character. I’ll bet you’d be in absolute hysterics if you could talk to him in Russian. Gene Krantz is an absolutely class act. Talked to everyone, stepped out from behind the table to take pictures and shake hands, you name it. Brian Binnie was also very nice and took some time to talk about his flight and the upcoming work with Spaceship 2. Edgar Mitchell seemed amazed to see a copy of my book and talked about how the first ASE meeting came to be in France instead of the US. When I first saw Al Worden, he says “hey, Andy, how are you feeling today?” It’s that sort of thing that just really makes your day, you know?

There was still a couple of hours of the show left after lunch and since I had all of my autographs already, I took the opportunity to meet some of the collectors and talk to a few of the astronauts and celebrities that I hadn’t seen yet. As I was standing in a cool spot between two of the autograph rooms (it was quite warm in some of them), I noticed something going on in the far corner of the main room. I walked over to take a closer look and found Dave Scott standing on a chair, trying to tape up an A/C vent that was high up on the wall above a door. He must have worked on that for 15-20 minutes without a lot of luck, probably because all he had was some wrapping tape and a few scraps of paper. The thought I had at the time was he would have had a lot more success if he was using some duct tape and a few pages out of a checklist.

The pre-banquet reception started at 6:30PM. Everyone was pretty well dressed, mostly in dark business clothes. In walks Wally Schirra in his Hawaiian shirt. He stood out like he had a spotlight on him. A little while later, we’re all standing in line at the bar and Al Worden is giving Wally some (good natured) stuff about wearing that shirt. I told Al that he shouldn’t do that because it was Wally’s best formal Hawaiian, which Wally thought was pretty funny. Then he shows me he has his Navy wings embroidered above the pocket. Literally, he has a big set of gold Navy wings sewn onto the shirt. He whispers to me “I wouldn’t put a set of Air Force wings on a shirt this fine.” Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything at the time because he would have been wearing it. A while later, I’m back in line and I see Warren Stevens standing over in the line to buy drink tickets. I had more tickets than I could use (complements of Jerry), so I offered to buy him a drink. Someone else did about the same time, so the three of us ended up in line talking with him. I had studied up on his career so I was able to talk intelligently with him about it and he seemed genuinely impressed. I decided I’d have to go by his table Sunday morning and get an autograph.

The banquet was almost anti-climactic. By sheer coincidence, I had decided to sit at Al Worden’s table over a week earlier. Linn and Dee were seated there as well. However, none of them was really at the table during the banquet. They were off and doing other things as ASF representatives. I would have really been tweaked if I hadn’t already had the Friday night experience. The other people at the table felt a little cheated by the whole thing. I did win an item in the silent auction, an artifact from Skylab 4 from Bill Pogue’s collection. Everyone ended up back at the bar after the banquet, as expected.

Sunday morning, there was no power in the main room. Everyone was sitting around in the dark. Steve was working the hotel staff as well as he could and trying to keep the astronauts informed. Gene Krantz got up at some point, looked around and asked why they couldn’t just move into the room with the empty tables. All of the astronauts agreed that it was a good idea, but nobody did anything about it. Gene looked around, then grabbed his stuff and said “let’s go”. Everyone did. It was nice to see that once a Flight Director, always a Flight Director. Not everyone left the dark room at that point, however. Bill Dana stayed there for a while longer, but it was because he was prepared. I have this great mental picture (the photograph I took didn’t turn out very well), of him standing behind his table, all by himself in the big dark room, holding a flashlight and telling people he was still there.

Later, I spent a bit of time with Warren Stevens and I have to tell you, he’s an amazing guy. We talked for quite a while. He’s almost 90 years old and he did everything himself. No helper, no nothing. One collector wanted him to autograph a scene from an Outer Limits episode he was in and he didn’t remember it. The collector started telling him a bit about it and it all came right back to him. Pretty amazing. I’m not sure I could remember that sort of detail from something that happened to me last month.

The 2007 show was at KSC, but I didn’t go. There really wasn’t anyone there that I needed to see…

World Space Congress foo

The World Space Congress was going on in Houston the week of October 14, 2002 and it cost quite a bit of money to attend, so nobody was really interested in doing it. But, on Saturday, October 19, Tom Stafford was going to be signing copies of his new book, “We Have Capture“. Saturday was free, so Jerry and I figured we would drive down that morning, grab a book, and drive back that same afternoon. Stafford wasn’t coming to Dallas on this tour and it was our only chance to see him and get a book. We also heard that there were going to be some other astronauts around, which would be a bonus.

At 0500 on Saturday, we climbed into the van and drove to Houston, arriving about thirty minutes before the day’s events were supposed to begin. It rained like cats and dogs on us all the way there. We caught up with the leading edge of the front on the north side of Houston and it held off long enough for us to get inside the convention center. Pretty good timing, if you ask me. Once inside, we registered and went straight to the Countdown Creations/collectSPACE booth to see Stafford.

The whole reason for getting there right as the place opened was to avoid the long line we figured would be waiting for a book. Stafford was going to be there four hours, but we didn’t want to miss out. There was no line. We walked right up, talked with him for a couple of minutes, bought a book and were done by 1010. Hmmmmmmmm… now what?

Okay, so we wandered around a bit. Guenther Wendt was there, autographing copies of his book. Gene Kranz was there as well. I had autographed copies of both their books, so it didn’t make sense to get another one. We looked at some of the displays, grabbed some of the freebies, and then headed upstairs to the NASA events on the third floor. There was a bunch of stuff for kids to do. There were also some presentations done by astronauts in one of the ballrooms, which seemed to be the thing for us to do.

First up was Dan Bursch talking about the ISS. It was interesting and he was a good speaker. Not only that, he stayed after the presentation and signed autographs. Score one for the “Home Planet”. Next was Bursch talking about spacesuit technology. We decided it was a good time to go grab some lunch and wander around the exhibits some more.

At 1300 they had two mission specialist candidates, Sunita (Suni) Williams and Leland Melvin, do a mostly kid-oriented program on “An Astronaut’s Life”. It was a lot of fun. One interesting fact; Melvin played pro (American) football for the Detroit Lions after getting his undergraduate degree. He only went back for his graduate degree after an injury ended his pro career. Talk about backing into the astronaut program. They were hustled out of the ballroom after the presentation, but that was so they could go out front and sign autographs. We hustled out of there and discovered that NASA had a signing table out front and it had been there all day. Doh! The line was long and we wanted to see the next presentation, so back inside we went.

The entire STS-109 crew was there to talk about their repair mission to Hubble. The crew talked a bit about their experience and then narrated a slide show about the mission. This alone would have been worth the trip. Unfortunately, the crew was hustled out of there right after the presentation, sticking around only long enough to sign a couple of autographs for some kids. But, that was cool. They didn’t go out to the signing table.

The last presentation of the day was Franklin Chang-Diaz, who was going to be talking about NASA’s plans for the future. This guy (jointly) holds the record for most missions flown at seven, and I really wanted to get his autograph. And what do you know? He’s standing at the back of the room, waiting to go on stage. Jerry and I managed to get the autograph. Score two for the “Home Planet”. Instead of sticking around for the presentation, we went back outside to the signing table and got another mission specialist candidate, Tracy Caldwall. Score three.

Changing gears, the STS-112 mission to the ISS had just returned from space on Friday and they were flying back to Houston on Saturday. During a lot of the day, we had been hearing announcements over the PA system that the crew would be returning at 1730 and there would be a crew return ceremony at Ellington Field for them. Evidently, this is something that happens every mission, and we just happened to be in Houston on the day this happened. The best part was that it was open to the public and the astronauts would be “accessible”. I had been tired all day long, having only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before, so I wasn’t interested in sticking around all afternoon for this. But, by the time we got done with everything else it was 1600; what was another hour or two?

We climbed back into the van and headed south to Ellington Field. On the way, we stopped at Pe-Te’s for supper, a sort of cajun honky-tonk right outside Ellington known for being popular with the astronauts. It was a very interesting place. They serve beer and bar-b-que and have a live band playing cajun country music for the people on the dance floor. But what was interesting was the mix of people there. Several older couples, some kids, a mix of various peoples and such. It was a fun place; not what you expect from an old, broken-down bar. I wouldn’t mind going back and taking my kids. Stop by if you ever get the chance.

We decided to head on to the ceremony a little after 1700. We followed the “crew return” signs to a hanger on the edge of the flight line and were allowed inside after being searched by security. There were maybe 200 people there, mostly NASA employees. The notable attendees included Sean O’Keefe, director of NASA; the directors of the Goddard, Stennis, and KSC centers; John Young and several other astronauts. Nobody asked Young for his autograph. The crew arrived pretty much on time and were introduced to the crowd by the director of JSC. After the introductions were finished, each crew member got up and spoke a bit about the mission. It was fantastic! Sandy Magnus was obviously stoked about her first mission, and Piers Sellers has a great wit and is a good speaker. The whole thing took maybe thirty minutes; it could have been longer, but I wasn’t particularly noticing how much time was going by.

Now, for the best part. The entire crew came out and signed autographs! I got all of them in my “Home Planet”. As I was finishing up, I saw Jerry standing outside talking with some people, so I made my way over there. It was Linda Godwin, her husband Steve Nagel (both astronauts) and their daughter. We talked for a couple of minutes and Steve seemed like a great guy (I had met Linda previously). I didn’t have either of them in my book, but it really wasn’t the time to ask for autographs. It was easy enough to just enjoy the encounter and let it slide.

That was pretty much the end of the day. We got back to Dallas about 0130. It was worth every mile.

The Iceland Air Defense Force?

Bill Anders is notorious for not signing autographs, but that didn’t stop us from trying to get one. We had been around him once or twice before, but there was never an opportunity to snag him. Well, we finally got that opportunity.

An outfit by the name of the Mustang Operations and Preservation Society (Mustang O.P.S.) put on a big P-51 Mustang shindig in Kissimmee on April 10, 1999. Jerry discovered the thing while searching a celebrity appearances site out on the Web. They called the event a “Gathering of Mustangs and Legends”. There was supposed to be some large number of P-51s, like 80, and a dozen men they called “Legends”. These Legends included several of the more famous P-51 aces from World War II. People like Bud Anderson, Bob Hoover, and Chuck Yeager. It also included Frank Borman and Bill Anders.

Now, this was too good a thing to pass up. I already had Jim Lovell on an Apollo 8 crew portrait, and here were the two other members of the crew in one place at the same time. I ordered tickets for the event, Iris made airline reservations, and Jerry and I took off for Florida. We couldn’t decide whether we should check our bags or not, but finally did check our suitcases. Of course, we had everything of importance in a carry-on bag, so it wouldn’t really hurt if a suitcase got lost. Somewhere along the way they managed to lose Jerry’s suitcase, so he ends up going to the show wearing the same clothes he wore on the trip. He probably won’t ever let me forget about this, though, since I was the one that convinced him to check the bag.

We got out to the event early, which was a good thing because about 10,000 people eventually showed up. After wandering around the various planes and exhibits for a while, we decided it was time to get serious about autographs. Jerry really wanted to get Chuck Yeager’s autograph, but he we couldn’t find him. Eventually, we noticed a long line near one of the P-51′s and Yeager was at the end of it. So, Jerry gets in line and eventually gets his autograph. The cool thing about it was Yeager was leaning up against the plane and would put the item to be autographed on the wing while he signed it.

During all this time we never managed to find Borman or Anders. I was beginning to get a bit concerned about it, but things soon got better. As I’m standing there, waiting to take Jerry’s picture with Yeager, I caught a glimpse of an Apollo 8 mission patch on someone’s arm. It was Anders. He was talking with what looked like a TV crew near a P-51 that had “Iceland Air Defense Force” stenciled on it. Iceland Air Defense Force? He was even wearing an IADF patch on his jumpsuit. Weird. Anyway, he’s doing some sort of interview and a very tentative line of autograph seekers is beginning to form. Jerry and I jump in.

The interview ends and old buddy Bill begins signing autographs. He stops after a few, however, saying he has to go to a briefing but would be back later to sign. A bunch of people left at that point, but I managed to convince Jerry to stay in line because Anders isn’t leaving. Now there’s only a few people in front of us and we do manage to get an autograph before he leaves. Maybe ten or fifteen people total managed to get one. While we were standing in line, a photographer told us that Borman had been there for a short time the previous day and then left. Oh, well. At least we got Anders.

Later on in the day they had the WWII Legends set up in a tent where you could get their autographs, so we each picked up a program and did that. It was pretty cool just listening to these guys talk about their experiences in the war.

Anders never did come back.

It’s funny now, but was absolutely not funny then: I ended up with one of the worst sunburns I ever had after being at the show all day. The problem was it was sort of a cool, rainy, overcast day and it was very comfortable. I didn’t begin to realize I was getting burned. It was worth it, though.

The last moonwalker

There was surprisingly little activity surrounding the 25th anniversary of the first moon landing. Jerry, Mark and I scrounged around and really couldn’t find anything. Then we heard there was going to be a big deal in Los Angeles in June and that Dave Scott was supposed to be there. Dave was the only moonwalker autograph I didn’t have. The problem was twofold – we didn’t have a lot of information about this deal and even if we did, I was out of town in New York the entire week and couldn’t do anything about it. I wasn’t going to go unless Jerry went. These things aren’t much fun by yourself. Once again, Iris came to the rescue. Jerry decided he was going, and he and Mark were doing some convoluted thing where they drove to Houston and flew from there because the airfare was so much cheaper. I didn’t have that luxury. Iris made all the reservations and got me on a direct flight out of Dallas. I pretty much flew in from New York, met Iris between flights to grab my tux, and flew right back out to Los Angeles. The thing that complicated this was I had a terrible head cold and had one ear completely stopped up. Flying was the most painful thing I could possible do, but hey, it was for Dave Scott.

I couldn’t believe how many people were crammed onto that flight. It was a DC-10 and every seat was full. It finally occurred to me that the World Cup finals were in Los Angeles on Sunday; the dinner was Saturday evening. It’s a good thing we had decided to fly in, do the dinner, and fly right back out because there wasn’t a hotel room for fifty miles.

I was supposed to meet Jerry and Mark at the airport, but they weren’t there. I waited for a while and they never showed up. I finally went and checked on their flight. It was delayed for two hours. They might not even make it in time. My problem was that I had only the vaguest idea of where this thing was going to be. After a lot of indecision, I left a message for them that I had gone on to the event. I grabbed a cab, told the driver to take me to the Beverly Hills Hilton, and took off. Remember that World Cup thing? It took an hour to travel 15 miles through the Los Angeles traffic. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I will make it. I did, but not by much. I jumped out of the cab, ran to the restroom, and changed into my tux just in time to catch the end of the reception hour. No astronauts in sight. Jerry and Mark eventually showed up, but ended up sitting on the far side of the room.

Dinner was okay. The guest speaker was none other than Al Gore, the Vice President. You really couldn’t see any security around the hall, but you can bet it was there. The Veep told a joke that I thought was quite funny, and the only people in the entire room that laughed were me and the guy sitting next to me. The joke was something about how great it was to be the Vice President, and how he got to vote on tied issues in the House. He never said anything about voting on tied issues, just that “every time I vote we win!”. I guess most people don’t know their basic American govenment. It turns out that the guy next to me was the President’s advisor on west coast affairs. That was a bit embarassing because I had made a snide remark earlier in the evening about Gore only coming to this event because he was already in town for the World Cup. He let it slide.

After Gore got done with his speech, they hustled him out of there pretty quickly and the social started. The celebrity table was full – Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Dave Scott were there. I got Dave’s autograph first thing. He was very pleasant and was happy to sign just about anything. Beats the daylights out of me why he won’t sign autographs any other time. Ron Howard was there, which was appropriate since he was directing the Apollo 13 movie. So was Tom Hanks, which was also appropriate since he was playing Jim Lovell in the movie. Shelly Duvall was there, and I got her autograph for Iris. The evening wound down rapidly after that. Mark and Jerry eventually dropped me off at the airport and I got back to Dallas about the time the sun was coming up.

Another successful trip. It’s interesting to look back on everything that has happened in the process of getting all twelve moonwalkers, starting with Alan Shepard in 1987 and ending with Dave Scott in 1994. Only seven years of effort, and worth every bit of it.

Good day, bad day, part 2

My second very bad day (with apologies to Alexander) was the first of February, 2003.

It was Friday, the end of the work week, and Harrison Schmitt (LM pilot, Apollo 17) was going to be speaking over in Fort Worth. TCU was dedicating a new meteorite museum and they had invited him to give the dedication speech. Just hearing him speak would be a lot of fun, so Jerry and I took off after work and headed over there. I didn’t have Jack in my “Home Planet”, so I took that along as well.

The talk was given in a lecture room. There may have been a hundred people there, tops. The talk was quite interesting, considering I know absolutely nothing about meteorites or even general geology. Afterwards, Jack stayed long enough to sign autographs and I get him in my book. One of the really interesting things was he requested that all children wanting autographs go first, which was a cool thing to do. He took time to talk to each and every one of the kids, too. I was flying pretty high after this.

On the way back to Dallas, Jerry and I discussed the fact that STS-107 will be flying over the Dallas area first thing in the morning (Saturday) on it’s way to a landing in Florida. It’s always a spectacular sight; the shuttle blazes a firey trail across the sky from west to east, taking maybe a minute or two to make the pass. It’s the biggest, fattest contrail you’ve ever seen, with a bright orange fireball at the head of it.

Unfortunately, I overslept a bit Saturday morning and wasn’t quite sure what time the shuttle would be flying over. So, I jumped on the computer and was searching for the answer when I heard a loud explosion overhead. I mean, it was loud enough to rattle the windows and make me wonder “what the hell?”. Grabbing the binoculars and running outside, I looked up and saw that marvelous smoke trail across about two-thirds of the sky. I couldn’t immediately see anything wrong, but the longer I looked, the stranger things seemed. I finally realized what was bothering me; I couldn’t see the fireball. Where the heck was the shuttle? Then, I noticed that the contrail looked wrong. It wasn’t the nice, long, smooth path that it usually is. At a point slightly southeast of me, the path changed abruptly and I could clearly see what looked like multiple contrails radiating from the change point. Oh, no…

There was nothing else to see here, so I went back inside to see what I could find on the television. Iris thought the boom she heard was the shuttle decelerating through the sound barrier, but that doesn’t happen until the shuttle is almost on final over Florida. No, I knew something was wrong. It took a while for the TV stations to figure it out and even longer before there was any sort of official confirmation, but I already knew Columbia was gone.

Now for the freaky part.

I had finally decided to get back to writing and requesting astronaut autographs just a couple of weeks before this happened. I wrote to everyone on this flight, congratulating them on a successful mission, figuring they would see the letters when they got back. Well, I checked the mail on Monday (February 3) and found a large envelope from NASA; it was an STS-107 crew picture with all of their autographs on it. It was postmarked February 1. Someone must have opened one of my letters, saw it was an autograph request, and thrown the picture in the NASA mail the week before. It’s clearly an autopen, but that’s okay. I saved both the picture and the front flap of the envelope with the cancellation on it.

Several weeks later, I saw the video from inside Mission Control during the last few minutes of Columbia’s flight. LeRoy Cain was the Flight Director, I think, and I clearly remember the look on his face when someone told him about first reports from the area. He looked like he had taken a solid punch to the gut when he turned around and said “Lock the doors.” I know exactly how he felt.

Bob, Mike, Neil and the Axe Murderer

Back in May of 1992, we discovered that there was a pro-am golf tournament held in Houston just before the Senior Golf Tour event that is held there. The thing that made it significant is the amateurs that played in it – Alan Shepard, Gene Cernan and Neil Armstrong to name a few. It was irresistable.

Jerry made arrangements for the tickets and the hotel. We would be staying at the same hotel where most of the golfers would be. Hopefully the astronauts would be there as well. Jerry, Toby and I drove down the day before the tournament started and checked into the hotel. We were supposed to meet some friend of Jerry’s, Chris, down there that evening. Anyway, we went out and got some supper, where we decided that the best thing to do was hang out in the hotel bar and watch for astronauts. Having done this at the Challenger Center dinner, we knew it could work.

When we got back to the hotel, the parking lot was full. While we were driving around looking for a place to park, I asked Jerry what Chris looked like so I could help keep an eye out for him. As he was describing Chris to me, I saw this strange looking guy getting out of a car, so as a joke I said “so he looks like this axe murderer over here” – well, it was Chris. Chris really does look a bit strange, but no one ever said anything to him about the remark.

Chris was all for hanging out in the bar, so we found a comfortable spot where we could see most of the lobby and settled in. We saw quite a few people – George McFarland (Spanky from “Our Gang”), Charley Pride and a few others. McFarland wanted something like $25 for his autograph, which to me is pretty funny. A short time later, Mike Connors walked by. No one but me recognized him. I mentioned him, and Chris yelled at him “hey, Mike, over here!” Well, Mike yelled back “hey, you, over here!” We immediately jumped up and got his autograph.

Next on the list had to be the strangest hour I have ever spent in my life. And it really was an hour long. We followed someone (I forget who) into one of the other bars, and noticed Robert Goulet and some redhead sitting in the back by themselves. Bob (as he later told us to call him) was smoking a big cigar and drinking scotch straight up. I decided to ask for his autograph, so Toby and I walked over and introduced ourselves. The redhead asked us to sit down and have a drink. Turns out her name is Vera, and she’s his wife. Nice British accent. We talked for a long time. Bob was in town performing in “Camelot”, and he decided to take a little time off and play in the tournament. He talked a lot about how he is playing the part of Arthur now, when he got his start in show business playing Lancelot. Vera talked about how she had to look after Bob, and so on. It was just too weird. They were the nicest people you could imagine. And I did get his autograph.

We never did see any astronauts that night, but it was worth it just for the hour with Bob and Vera. It still sounds strange to say that.

The next morning I woke up with one of the worst migraines I have ever had. It was to the point where I couldn’t bet out of bed and go with them to the golf course. Sometime later in the morning I managed to get up and drive around to find some sinus medicine. I took it and fell asleep in the parking lot of the Kroger where I found it. Later in the day I woke up, felt a bit better, and drove out to the golf course. I was scared to death that I had missed my chance to see Neil, so I forced myself to make the trip. I started at 18 and worked my way backwards until I found Jerry and company. They were, of course, following Neil. After a couple of holes I was able to meet him and get his autograph. He was just as pleasant as he could be. Jerry took a picture, which I’ve still got somewhere. I felt much better after that. I got Alan to autograph something else later in the day, but Gene didn’t make the tournament. I was pretty disappointed since he was the one I really wanted to get since I didn’t already have something autographed by him.

We stayed around for the next day of the tournament, but it was pretty anticlimactic. On the way back home we decided to try again next year. But that’s a different story.

The 10th anniversary of the space shuttle

Some people that we met at the Challenger Center benefit let us know that there was going to be a small party celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch at JSC. It was open to the public, but was advertised only in the JSC employee newsletter. This would have been sometime around April of 1991. I don’t remember the exact date. I do remember that Jerry and I went. There may have been others along as well.

Houston is a four or five hour drive from Dallas. You never know who is going to show up at these things, so it’s always a leap of faith to make that trip, particularly when you’re planning on making it round-trip in one day. The trip wouldn’t even be possible these days; access to most of JSC has been restricted since the new visitor center opened. Back then, you just drove up to the front gate and told them you were going to the (old) visitor center and you could go pretty much anywhere. That’s not to say there wasn’t any security at JSC. You just try to get into a building that wasn’t a public building and you would rapidly find out just how good the security was. Once we got there, we drove on back to the picnic area where the party was supposed to take place.

The party was in full swing when we got there. There were maybe 100 or 200 people total and quite a few astronauts in attendance. Both John Young and Robert Crippen were there and they each spoke for a short period of time. As they’re speaking, we noticed we were standing right behind David Walker. This was shortly after he was suspended for some sort of rules infraction, so it was interesting to see him. That didn’t stop us from getting his autograph.

Once the party started breaking up we talked with Story Musgrave for a while and got his autograph. We also noticed a group of people standing off to one side, talking among themselves. One of the women looked familiar and I thought it was Bonnie Dunbar. Well, it wasn’t. It was Nancy Currie and she wasn’t too happy about being mistaken for Bonnie. The mistake turned out well though, because it got us talking with them and we found out it was several of the members of astronaut class 13, picked just the year before. They all signed an envelope that I got from Jerry and they included their call signs. The call signs I remember are Nancy (“Smurf”) and David Wolf (“Bluto”). I’ll have to dig that envelope out and see who all is on it one of these days.

We eventually got around to finding Young and Crippen. They weren’t signing anything, but John told me to send a request to his secretary. I didn’t have a lot of hope about that because John was a notoriously bad signer, but I sent a letter as soon as I got back to Dallas. I had a couple of things in my favor. One was I mentioned seeing him at the party and reminded him of what he said about an autograph. If he thought I was a NASA employee, even better. The other was we both graduated from Georgia Tech, so I signed the letter with “Georgia Tech class of 1978″. I sent a copy of him doing the jumping salute on the moon and he sent back something beyond my wildest hopes. He signed it with a huge inscription, talking about the various moon features in the picture and how he had named them after Tech things (Wreck Crater and such).

Shortly after that, John Young quit signing. It wasn’t until after he retired in 2004 that he did a custom signing for Novaspace.

The Challenger Center Benefit

This event was so long ago that I have trouble remembering it. It was March of 1990 and I’m writing this in April of 1995 while on a business trip to Tampa.

Jerry, Mark and I wrangled an invitation to a Challenger Center benefit where there were supposed to be a few astronauts in attendance. So, we packed our tuxes and headed for Houston. The first clue that it was going to be an interesting evening was that afternoon when we were sitting in the hotel bar having a drink. Buzz Aldrin came in to register at the reception desk and I recognized him. He was standing in line like everyone else and we jumped on him. He signed a couple of autographs before being dragged away. A pretty successful start.

The benefit included a silent auction that had some astronaut stuff in it. Jerry and Mark bid on a couple of things but didn’t get them. The auction took place during the reception that preceeded supper and only one or two astronauts were there. They weren’t signing autographs, either. Bummer.

Anyway, supper was okay. We met a couple that chased autographs like we did, except they lived there in Houston so it was a bit easier. Jerry has stayed in touch with them since then and has gotten a couple of pretty good tips about astronaut opportunities. After supper was when the trip began to pay off. We got Walt Cunningham’s autograph. I think he was surprised that anyone recognized him. We got Charles Bolden’s autograph as well and that was interesting because he was scheduled to go up on a flight in just a week or two, so I would have thought he wouldn’t be there. He had some friends with him and when we asked for his autograph, they sort of giggled. I guess they were amazed that anyone would want his autograph. He inscribed them as well with a nice sentiment. I don’t remember if we got anyone else.

After the supper, there was a private reception up on the top floor. Mark got wind of this and managed to get us an invitation. Talk about impressive! Big windows that overlooked Houston, all sorts of small desserts and a waiter making Irish coffee. The only astronaut there was Buzz, but that was okay. Most of the founders of the Challenger Center were there, including Dick Scobee’s widow, June. We got to talking with some people and they were impressed that we would drive all the way down from Dallas for the event. That seemed strange to us, because you had to have contributed $10,000 in order to get invited to the private party, so obviously money wasn’t a problem. When June heard about the trip, she came over and we ended up talking with her for almost an hour. We, of course, told her just to call us if she needed volunteers or anything. Why, we were the high-rollers from Dallas! Talk about pumping up your ego.

She never did call.

One of the great things that came out of this trip was a picture of Jerry and I in our tuxes. Jerry has it posted on his bulletin board at work. No one believes it’s us in the picture. Pretty funny.

Data is a very nice name

It all started innocently enough back in 1991. Jerry noticed a small blurb in the calendar section of “Air & Space”. It said something about a 30th anniversary celebration of Alan Shepard’s first space flight being put on by the Mercury Seven Foundation. It sounded a bit weird, but Jerry went ahead and called the contact number listed in the blurb. After talking with whoever it was on the other end of the line, he was convinced it was weird. But, the guest list included the six remaining Mercury astronauts and a number of other celebrities including the cast from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, so it was impossible to pass up.

The price was around $200 a person. This included a sit-down dinner, which helped justify the cost. I don’t remember if we sent money or paid when we got there, but a couple of weeks after the phone call we got a formal invitation to the event in the mail. It was getting better all the time.

Time to prepare for the event. Iris decided to come along since the event was being held in Washington, D.C. and she could go to Barb’s baby shower. She made the reservations and since the event was black-tie, Jerry and I went out and bought tuxes. Yes, that’s right – I now own a tux. But, I digress. Time passed slowly, as you might expect. I talked with a couple of friends from Space Camp about the dinner, and one of them, Vicki, decided to go with us since she lived in Washington. Eventually, we made it to Washington and were ready to leave for the hotel where the dinner was to take place.

This is the point where I got extremely bent out of shape. Jerry and Mark had arrived on a different flight, so we were going to meet them at the hotel. No problem there. The problem was that Vicki was late. We waited and waited and she didn’t show up. I got more bent by the minute. You see, sometimes the only way to get an autograph is to catch whoever it is before the event. A lot of times the event happens and people hustle off. So, I saw my opportunity slipping away. She finally showed up and we took off as fast as we could go. We got there just in time for dinner.

What a dinner it was! The food was fine, and dessert consisted of a chocolate Mercury capsule (it looked more like a Gemini capsule) about 4 inches high. The ST:TNG cast sat a couple of tables in front of us. All of them with the exception of Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn were there. Gene Roddenberry was there, too, in his wheelchair. The things I remember about them were Gates McFadden looking great for a tall, slender, red-headed woman; most everyone in the crowd wearing a black tux jacket except for Levar Burton, who was wearing a white jacket; Jonathan Frakes with his wife Jeannie Francis; and Patrick Stewart “holding court” at the table – he isn’t very tall, but that voice of his makes him very tall even when he’s sitting down.

Iris went and got Brent Spiner’s autograph for Barb. When she asked him for the autograph, he asked what her name was and she replied it was for a friend. Someone sitting at the table made some sort of dumb comment about that, but he went right on. Iris finally convinced Brent that it was for Barb, and he wrote a neat note with it – “To Barb, Data would be a nice name for a boy or a girl. Brent Spiner”. At the shower the next evening, Iris slipped the note in with an outfit for the baby and Barb just lost it when she saw it. It was pretty neat.

As for the astronauts, quite a few were there. The six Mercury astronauts were there as advertised, along with Rick Hauck, Michael Collins, Richard Truly, and I don’t remember who else. Bob Hope, Walter Cronkite, Hugh Downs, and Bill Dana were also there.

To make this long story just a little bit longer, after the dinner and the speeches and such, no one left. Everyone stayed around, which got Vicki out of the dog house. I gave Iris one of the programs and a Sharpie and sent her off in search of autographs. I took my pictures and ran off to get astronaut autographs. The prize from the evening is the original Mercury 7 picture with the six autographs on it. Jerry and I went from astronaut to astronaut in a neat, orderly fashion. It took forever to get all six. As we were waiting to get Wally Schirra’s autograph, someone ran into us from behind and just about knocked us down. I was about to yell at this idiot when I noticed who it was – Walter Cronkite. Both Jerry and I were too stunned to do anything other than let him through. I got a chance to get Alan Shepard’s autograph when there weren’t too many other people around. We talked for a bit and he asked me my name, so I told him. He said “Hey, that’s a pretty good name”, and I explained how I had been called “Alan” all my life because of it. We both had a pretty good chuckle about it. This was quite a bit different from the first time I met him, and it still amazes me how much has happened since then.

Later on, after the autograph frenzy was over, I realized I hadn’t seen Iris in quite some time. I found her getting an autograph from someone, and asked her how she had done. Well, she showed me the program she had been getting autographs on – it was covered. She had gotten just about everyone’s autograph, including some I hadn’t gotten, and she didn’t even know who they were. “I just followed the groups of people and got whoever’s autograph they were getting,” she said. Hmmm…

These days, the Mercury 7 Foundation is known as the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). I have a couple of pretty good stories involving them, too.

Taylor’s Bookstore, take one

My autograph collecting career was just getting started back in June of 1989 when we went to Taylor’s Bookstore to see Buzz Aldrin. He was promoting his book “Men From Earth.“ Jerry and I showed up, hoping to get an autograph from the second man to walk on the moon. We weren’t disappointed. We both picked up a copy of the book and got him to sign it, but I also brought along a great picture of Aldrin on the moon that I got from Iris’ dad. Eastman Kodak had distributed a set of pictures from Apollo 11 shortly after they were first available and he had gotten one of the sets. After holding onto it for almost twenty years, he gave it to me. I got Buzz to autograph one of them as well as the book. I even managed to get a pretty good picture of Jerry shaking Buzz’s hand. It was a lot of fun.

While Jerry and I were standing in line, we met someone that was as big a space freak as we were. His name was Mark and he was carrying around a copy of “The History Of Manned Spaceflight” that must have had a couple of hundred astronaut autographs in it. I guess you could say Jerry and I were impressed.

After the signing, we talked with Mark some more, traded phone numbers, and he went home. Mark was the person that gave us the idea that we could call or write or visit astronauts and get them to sign things; something that had never occurred to us before. It was a startling revelation to be sure.

Now, the real fun starts. After the signing, we met Mary across the street for supper. Jerry and I were flying high after meeting Buzz and Mary happened to mention that she had been trying to through to Charlie Duke, but hadn’t had any success. I don’t remember exactly why she had been doing this, but I’m sure Jerry had put her up to it. Anyway, we talked about it for a few minutes, and then it hit us; why not just go see him? Mark said he had done it. Duke lives in New Braunfels, which is just a three hour drive from Dallas. So, Jerry and I packed a change of clothes in the car and took off right after supper. We arrived in Austin about midnight and got a room at a small motel. The next morning we drove on down to New Braunfels and stopped at a convenience store to call. Neither Jerry nor I wanted to make the call. Jerry thought I would say the right things and I thought I would lock up like I did with Alan Shepard. We thought about flipping a coin, but finally decided on having Jerry call and do the talking, and I would tell him what to say. What a team.

Our mission almost went down in flames at this point. Duke’s secretary didn’t want to have anything to do with us, but we managed to convince her that we weren’t geeks and she told us how to get to the office that Duke keeps in town. She wouldn’t guarantee anything. When we got there, we gave her the things we wanted signed and she took them back to his office. I didn’t have anything, so Jerry gave me a copy of the Apollo 16 crew portrait. He had another one and had brought along some old black-and-white pictures he had taken of the TV broadcast of the mission. We were happy to get the things signed, but really wanted to talk with Duke. You could say we were disappointed. A few minutes after the secretary disappeared, the man himself came out to talk with us. What a blast! I think the pictures were what did it. He had already autographed everything and seemed amazed that someone would take pictures like that. He must have talked with us for five or ten minutes before he had to return to his work.

The drive home was great. Just thinking about two moonwalkers in as many days was a lot of fun. We stopped for kolaches in West, which reminds me of something; it seems the whole Duke thing with Mary came about because she had made some statement about being able to make kolaches. Jerry made a bet with her that if she could make kolaches like his mother, he would buy her a new dress. If she couldn’t, she would have to call and try to get Jerry in to see Charlie Duke. That’s why she brought it up at supper that evening.

Evidently, Mary couldn’t make kolaches very well, but I think she still got her dress. I got my autograph, which is now framed and hanging on my space wall.