posted 03-31-2023 09:36 AM               

A marvelous adventure began with a call from Bobby Livingston, Executive Vice President at RR Auction.

“Randolph Hollerith, the Dean of the National Cathedral is a former classmate of mine from St. Stephen’s in Alexandria, Virginia. The Rice Alumni Association is sponsoring a talk by Dr. Douglas Brinkley, who wrote the book ‘American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race.’ The Rice event is headed by another classmate of mine, Ted Adams.”

Adams knew that Bobby had a lot of connections with people who collect space program artifacts, and asked if he might be able to contact someone to bring something related to the program to the event that night.

When Bobby called me, I was thrilled at the opportunity to meet Dr. Brinkley, and also to see the world-famous National Cathedral. I said I would bring the Apollo 17 cuff checklist that Gene Cernan wore for 7 hours, 12 minutes on the lunar surface, on December 11, 1972. The checklist still has streaks of lunar dust on the pages, and so we would be bringing a bit of the moon itself to the event that night...