Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Footnotes

I'm often fascinated by uber-footnotes in history; either in pictures (ie. who's the woman in the picture they always show kneeling over the body at Kent State?) or otherwise (ie Raymond Jones - to quote Wikipedia: The Beatles had recorded the 'My Bonnie' single with Tony Sheridan in Germany...Epstein's version of the story was that a customer—Raymond Jones—walked into the NEMS shop and asked Epstein for the "My Bonnie" single, which made Epstein curious about the group.") Who are these people? Has anyone ever interviewed them? That should be a whole book, interviews with these footnote people. There's millions of 'em.
I was gonna ask who was the kid who's dad dragged him into the tracking station to use his small kid arms and fingers to reach an antenna that was needed for the Apollo 11 splashdown as the clock wound down. Who was this kid, and why hasn't anyone tracked him down, I wondered?

Of course, CNN did just 3 months ago, on the 40th anniversary of Apollo. What a story.


And that's when Greg was called in to save the day. Charles Force sent someone out to his home to pick up Greg. Once at the tracking station, Greg reached into the tiny hole and packed grease around the failed bearing. It worked, and the station was able to successfully complete its communications role in the mission. Apollo 11 splashed down safely the next day.

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