In 1973 I was visiting the National Air Museum. This was three years before the opening of the National Air and Space Museum, my favorite building and the most visited museum on this planet!
I was marveling at the Spirit of St. Louis when my gaze was drawn to an elderly, tall lanky man who was standing next to and partially obscured by one of the building's support columns. He, too, was seemingly mesmerized by the grey high-winged monoplane.
It was the Lone Eagle!
I was not ten feet from him and I could not muster the courage to waltz over and shake his hand! He died less than a year later.
I did manage to shake the hand of Admiral Alan B. Shepard at a signing of his book
Moon Shot in 1994. I purchased two volumes, both of which he signed. As he stood to hand me the books, I shook his hand and said "Thanks for lighting the candle, Admiral!" He fixed me with his steel blue Ice Commander eyes and offered a hint of a smile. I assure you that remains an indelible memory: I touched the man who commanded Apollo 14 and hit a very long seven iron on the plains of Fra Mauro. I touched the man who pissed his space suit on Project Mercury's Freedom 7...
- Ed