. Blown-Off by Greatness A three-part series on c…

.
Blown-Off by Greatness

A three-part series on chance encounters with giants in the fields of art, popular music, and space travel.

PART 3: “We have a problem!”

I interviewed two Apollo astronauts as a cub reporter—Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell. I completely embarrassed myself with the latter when I asked him what it was like to walk on the moon. The interview had nothing to do with space, so the question was completely inappropriate. The whole thing could have been avoided.

In my defense, this happened in 1983, years before Lovell’s book, “Lost Moon,” and the Apollo 13 movie. Characteristically, he answered me as if he were still in the Air Force and being interviewed on the radio by a civilian journalist (throughout the interview, he kept saying things like “outstanding!” and “Roger!”). “Well, you might remember,” he said politely, “that we had a little trouble up there and had to turn around and come home.”

Oh. Right. You were on that one.

I kind of let myself down there. You see, when I was a kid, I was absolutely obsessed with the space program leading up to the moon shot. I remember reading a book my dad got for me at a Gulf station that explained the mechanics of the Saturn V rocket. Of course it also had a detailed diagram of the workings of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), the twisted arachnoid heap that would actually land on the moon. The book had biographies of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. I remember reading it on my Aunt Ches’s couch. I can still see the pictures.

As it turned out, I was at a Boy Scout Jamboree in Idaho when the first moon landing occurred. They marched us one night to a field with a drive-in theater-sized screen set up. First, we sat through Nixon giving us stiff little televised shout-out on the occasion of our big national camping trip. Then they showed clips of the moon landing. Re-runs. I was really starting to loose it for the Boy Scouts. Finally there was a live performance by Up With People. I sulked back to my tent.

My enthusiasm for the space program waned after 1969. I guess most people would have a hard time naming the crews of any flight other than Apollo 11. On the other hand, only a select group of us would ask an astronaut a stupid question like, “What was it like to walk on the moon?”

When I saw Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 more than ten years after my interview with Lovell, all my enthusiasm for the Apollo program rushed back. I even read Lovell’s book, which was re-titled “Apollo 13,” in paperback. As soon as Lovell became Tom Hanks, everyone remembered him fondly. And I felt retroactively mega-stupid. I had to make it up to him somehow.

I had my chance in Chicago sometime in the late 1990s. Lovell was speaking at an industrial controls systems exhibition in the giant McCormick center. I brought my copy of his book and sat near the back of the hall where I listened to him talk about oxygen tanks. Clicking around with some beta version of PowerPoint, he didn’t look much like an astronaut. He looked like some guy from Honeywell, or Johnson Controls, most of whom are ex-military and say thing like “outstanding!” and “Roger.”

After Lovell’s talk, I shot down what I determined would be best aisle to get to the stage exit fastest. I arrived at my destination just as he got to the bottom of the stairs where he was greeted by some handler-types from exhibition management. Waving my press pass around, I bullied up closer. I was all set to interrupt him while he was speaking, as I have done to CEOs and governors, invoking my status as a working journalist. Rather than nailing him with some kind of probing question about fourth quarter earnings or his stand on emissions controls, however, I was set to ask him for his autograph and to tell him about how much I love space.

Lovell’s radar impressed me. He locked in earlier in my approach than Larry Bossidy or Dick Cody ever did. He had this excellent roll move where he turned and grabbed two of his handlers, making it look like a congenial arm-around-the-shoulder buddy routine. But I knew better. I knew that he had succeeded in establishing a human shield. With his arm around these men, he moved quickly into an open freight elevator. I had seconds in which to act.
“Mr. Lovell! Hi!,” I said, darting toward the big elevator as the door began closing. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I wrote a little story about when you invested in that…”

No good. Lovell closed his keepers around him just as the doors of the elevator shut completely. I caught a sly smile from a man who was used to squeaking by on close calls.

Standing with my mauled paperback, looking at the cold grey doors of the freight elevator, I listened, crestfallen, as astronaut Jim Lovell had lift off.