Eugene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the surface of the Moon, died in January, 2017. He was a fervent supporter of the U.S. space program. So am I. It changed my life. The story goes something like this.

“Cockroft?”

“Speaking.”

“Don’t have much time, Cockroft. Wanna come to Houston and be a spaceman?”

“Wait, wait, wait, is this Worrell, my old Channel 6 amigo?”

“I need you down here pronto.”

“Uhmm.”

Translation 1: In that brief phone conversation, my former television colleague Larry Worrell was asking me in his brusque, minimalist way if, in ten days, I wanted to leave the safe confines of my work as a television director in Wichita Falls, Texas and journey 400 miles south for a two-week contract job at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Nassau Bay, Texas, about 25 miles southeast of Houston.

On the last day of January 1971, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, three NASA astronauts were scheduled to climb into a teardrop-shaped space capsule sitting on top of a rocket taller than the Statue of Liberty. Two hours and 40 minutes later, five powerful rocket engines would ignite, and the Saturn V rocket would be on its way, lifting three souls from the surface of the Earth on their journey to our lovely Moon.

The Apollo 14 Lunar Landing Mission beckoned, and my long-lost amigo had offered me a chance to be a minor part of the adventure.

Translation 2: “Hell, yes!”

But. But. For almost 27 years the strong, clinging vines of comfort and security had bound me firmly to my family and my friends and my hometown of a 100,000-plus residents. I was safe, sort of. Whenever I looked in a mirror (why, hello insecurity, how are you today?), I saw a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, genuine North Texas rube. And now, this red-dirt rube was about to break free and head for the Texas Gulf Coast, to enter the mysterious and sophisticated world of space exploration.

A week-and-a-half later, the security guard at the front entrance of the Manned Spacecraft Center cautioned me that the “Visitor” tag now dangling from the rear-view mirror of my big Pontiac was good for one day only. Fine by me. The rube was in.

The Public Affairs Office was, in 1970, located in Building 1, just across a large patio from the Visitors Center and Auditorium Building. Two successful Apollo moon landings had brought a steady flow of visitors from this and other countries to the big space base near the Gulf of Mexico.

In mid-April, 1970, the Apollo 13 spacecraft was approaching the Moon when an oxygen tank exploded, ending any chance for a successful mission and endangering the lives of the three astronauts aboard. NASA engineers and technicians proved their prowess in real-time problem-solving when they returned the astronauts alive to a successful landing in the Pacific Ocean. Now, news organizations from all over the world were either in or headed to Nassau Bay, Texas, in January 1971, to see what would happen with Apollo 14.

The patio was alive with the foot traffic of NASA employees and reporters and photographers and producers and crying babies and curious children and mommies and daddies and grandmas and grandpas, and me.

I pushed open one of the Building 1 glass doors and walked into a new world. Directly ahead of me, in a small room, a press conference was in progress. I made eye contact with Worrell, who was directing a microphone toward one of the members of the press corps seated in the room. A surly nod of acknowledgement headed my way.

The press conference ended and the gathered crowd quickly emptied the room to go make phone calls and file stories. Worrell waved for me to join him.

“Cockroft, this ain’t Channel 6. This ain’t Wichita Falls. This is the center of the universe. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“It’s gonna be real different. There’s gonna be some purty people, some ugly people, some smart people, some dumb people, and some weird and real weird people. Make ‘em happy. Everybody around here’s purty good at what they do.”

“So, what exactly do you have me signed up for?”

“Well, we’re gonna work when we’re workin’ and when we’re not we’re gonna have fun. You’re not gonna get much sleep, but you’re gonna love it.”

“Larry, you do realize you’re it. You’re the only person I know here. Weidman and Shaw and Burkhart are all working in TV up the road in Houston, but that’s Houston, not here. I kinda feel like a BB rolling down a 4-lane highway. And what was it again that I’m gonna be doing?”

“Cockroft, you’re gonna make the networks happy. When those guys are on the way to the Moon and turn on the camera for a news conference, or when Shephard and Mitchell are on the surface, kickin’ up some moon dust, you’re gonna push a button, call the network guys in the trailers behind the Visitors Center, and let them know that some space TV is comin’ their way. Welcome to the center of the universe.”

Larry walked me through the building and introduced me to some of those “people” he had mentioned. I shook hands with Milt, Terry, Bob, Jack, Judy, Doyle, Art, Morris, Ed, Joyce, Mike, Bob, three Johns and many, many others.

“Make ‘em happy, Cockroft.”

I did. I made a lot of friends in the Public Affairs Office in Building 1 during the flight of Apollo 14. I didn’t make many, if any, friends in Building 8, where I actually worked during the mission. Others sitting at the long console where I sat and listened and made my calls to domestic and foreign television networks were engineers. I was not. They had short hair. I had long hair. They dressed casually. I always wore a tie. They didn’t smoke. I was a chimney. They read technical manuals during mission lulls. I read “Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing.” I was the odd child in the room. I loved it.

The Apollo 14 Mission to the Moon was a success scientifically, and Commander Alan Shepard went off script and whacked two golf balls with a six-iron before the crew left the surface of the Moon. NBC, CBS, ABC, and international networks broadcast those in-flight news conferences and lunar surface activities to a worldwide television audience. I made the networks happy.

And Worrell was right. I did work hard when I was working. He and I did have fun when we weren’t working. I did not get a lot of sleep.

I ate raw oysters for the first time in my life. I inhaled the lovely, salty, fishy smell of the Gulf of Mexico. I saw hell on fire. At least that was Worrell’s impression of the sprawling Texas City refineries when viewed at night from Interstate 45. I fell in love with the big, freewheeling city of Houston. I also fell in love with Meredith, a beautiful New Orleanian who would later become my wife.

Three souls had returned safely to Earth. The splashdown parties were over. My brief brush with the mysterious and sophisticated world of space exploration was at an end. That old “Visitor” pass, good for one day only, had many days ago been replaced with a “Temporary” pass, good for the duration of the mission. Now NASA wanted it back. No government souvenirs, thank you.

I gave mi viejo amigo Larry a hug, climbed into the big Pontiac, and headed for Wichita Falls. My plans for the future were laid. My boss at Channel 6 would hear from me that I had an unforgettable adventure while I was away. In fact, so unforgettable that in two weeks I’d be gone. I would tell my mother and father I loved them and appreciated all they had done for me for so many years, but I felt it was time for a change. I would bid adieu to close and not so close friends and invite them to come see me in Houston. None of it easy but all of it necessary.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a blue-eyed, blonde-haired, North Texas guy smiling back at me.

Strange. Suddenly I felt lighter. Suddenly I felt free.