Originally uploaded by ebohls
It was only after I posted the item below about Ed Mitchell that I remembered: I’ve got a picture of him up in my workshop. Actually, as you can see, there are three pictures, one each of the Apollo 14 crew. Signed pictures, no less, although I’m pretty sure that they were signed by the automatic pen machine rather than the crewmembers themselves. But still. Signed.
So it’s funny how I’m patting myself on the back in the blog post for remembering the astronauts’ names, when I didn’t even remember that I had these pictures. What a strangely selective thing is memory.
The pictures themselves, if you’re curious, were a gift from Mom. She’s got that knack, the gift-giving knack. Just coming up with cool stuff like this, or the electronic protractor last year, or the Brookstone desk set gadget on my desk at work this very moment. I wish I had that knack.
The other thing that I remembered, this with respect to forgetting Gene Cernan’s name, was that only last Saturday, less than a week ago, I held in my very hands a copy of Cernan’s memoirs, Last Man on the Moon. Packed it up along with many other books, and donated them to a local used bookstore, true. But I actually touched his book only days ago, and then I forgot his name.
In my defense I can only say that I clearly was having trouble between Irwin and Kerwin, and then Cernan. Jim Irwin, of course, LMP on Apollo 15. And Joe Kerwin, who was on one of the Skylab missions, I surely no longer remember which. But I do remember that he was a capcom on Apollo 13. He was calling and calling up to them during Earth re-entry, getting no respose. Everybody was getting worried. Finally Jack Swigert’s voice came crackling through. “Okay, Joe,” he said.