Reporting from Catawba Island, Ohio—I touched history today. Not a cannon, painting, or dusty diary memory, but a living, breathing encyclopedia on the Apollo Space Program and NASA from the mid-’60s onward.
Nope, this legend wasn’t an astronaut blasting off, but one of the behind-the-scenes wizards who made those moonshots possible. He was splattered in paint and dripping sweat, fresh off slapping a new coat on sheds around Cedarlane RV Park.
I was knee-deep in laundry duty when he rolled up in his workman’s golf cart to rinse out his paintbrush before hitting the showers.
“Hi, how are you?” I asked. “Great,” he shot back. “How about you?”
“I’m doing laundry,” I shrugged, like that summed up my whole glamorous existence.
From there, the usual campground chit-chat kicked in, and bam—suddenly I’m jawing with a guy who helped build the lunar module (fingers crossed on the lingo) that delivered humans to the moon.
Where were you when we first landed on the moon? Chatting with this American hero jogged my memory of exactly where I was during that epic moment.
Humble yet clearly a brainiac—his blue eyes lit up like stars as he relived those glory days.
(Photo: Sarah Anderson, Courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum.)
As we wrapped up, I stuck out my hand for a proper intro. He did the same. I touched history… and walked away enlightened, fulfilled, and grinning ear to ear.
I’m grateful I’m a total chatterbox, always in hyperdrive. Otherwise, I’d have missed shaking hands with this quiet Texan whose impact on my life—and yours—is as massive as a full, illuminous moon.
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