When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut-the ultimate pilot, pilot to the nth degree;  break the surly bonds and all that!  When I was in college, I started to learn to fly, a process rendered fairly trivial by all the time I had spent in the air with my sister and future brother-in-law Mikey.  I soloed at 7 hours, but soon found that I was too tall to be a military jet jock, the traditional path to astronautdom.

At that time, NASA was introducing the Shuttle Specialist role-less pilot, more scientist, but still, an astronaut. I got into UCSD intending to do something reasonably useful to NASA. As full adulthood loomed, however, and my permanent personality began to manifest itself, it became clear that I had neither the discipline nor the dedication, to say nothing about the tolerance necessary to work closely with other people.

Anyway, my fascination with all things NASA remained-in fact, grew. I cried the first time the shuttle landed at Edwards, live on national TV, just like a good hunting dog returning with the bird. What a feat: to fire thrusters on a large, ungainly asymmetrical body at the precise place, time, strength and duration in earth orbit, glide unpowered through orbits, miles vertical, miles horizontal, through all kinds of atmospheric conditions, to a pinpoint, deadstick landing. I still remember the adulation I felt for John Young and Bob Crippen-always will.

Until 1999, the closest I ever got to a Moon Man was during the early ‘80s.  Mikey had become my brother-in-law as well as a marketing pilot for Learjet, then owned by Gates Tires and Rubber of Denver, CO.  Marketing was based in Tucson (AZ), Harry Gates had a home in Wickenburg (AZ), and Neil Armstrong (need I remind you that he was the First Man on the Moon?) was a Director of Gates. Anyway, I remember hearing stories of Mike flying right seat to Neil’s left seat on Harry’s Lear, leaving Tucson to pick Harry up in Wickenburg and then on to a board meeting in Denver, always with a high-performance take-off to thrill the folks in Wickenburg.  Those stories thrilled me then, and the retelling still does now.

October 1999 brought the annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention to Atlanta.  At the time, I was part of a group that had just gotten approval to develop a private airport/airpark south of Phoenix. One of my partners and I, along with our requisite women and children, had just attended the Paris Airshow (June 1999) and were convinced that air shows were an important venue for the marketing of our project. Maybe it was just the near-continual state of attention centered around our crotches, maybe not, but we wanted more; I’ve always loved the smell of burnt kerosene.

In the afterglow of the Paris business coup, Scott and I were riding high and made plans to attend the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) convention in Atlanta in early October, then "pop" back over to Paris to meet some contacts made at the air show in Beauvais, then "pop" right back to Atlantic City for the Aircraft Owner’s and Pilot’s (AOPA) convention in Atlantic City, to further our marketing programme.  It turned out that Atlanta/NBAA was as far as I got that year.

Wandering aimlessly around the convention looking for an acquaintance (whom I hoped would become an associate), I placed a call to his office in Scottsdale, asking about his location at the fair.  As the words were coming out of my mouth, my feet mysteriously stopped moving and I found myself staring at right at him-and him at me.

He turned out to be standing in line to meet Eugene Cernan
( www.GeneCernan.com) , the 12^th and last astronaut on the Moon.  Apollo 17, I remember it like it was yesterday. He and Harrison ("Jack") Schmitt, a geologist from New Mexico and the only scientist to go to the Moon then, and now a Senator, rode around the Moon in the rover, having a ball. I remember vividly how, at the time, I wished I was with them.

Cernan had just written an autobiography entitled The Last Man on the Moon, and my acquaintance was holding a couple of copies. He graciously extended the gift of one to me, and, more importantly, invited me to cut into line where he was.

When I finally got up to the Great Man, I babbled my name in response to his query. He graciously chatted with me for a few moments while He autographed my copy of his book, mentioning that they had nicknamed Schmitt "Rocky" because he was a geologist. He wrote: "To Rock: Best Wishes from the Moon!"

I floated away like a puff of confused cigar smoke, feeling perhaps a lot like He had when He first walked on the Moon. Over the next several hours, everything was messy but sweet, with all of (the memories of) my own hopes and dreams crashing back down to the ground all around me.  But then, the sense of all of my failures dissipated, and it simply felt good to have been in the presence, for however fleeting a moment, of one of my Heroes.