Apollo Adventures at the Cape

Hi Sara! I worked at the Cape from June 1965 to May 1970 so I saw everything from the Saturn to the Titan. I worked in the Headquarters Bldg. and my first boss and the bosses under him were all very cool with letting us go outside to watch a launch if it was special. In fact, our big boss encouraged it. One day, we learned the Titan was going and just a few minutes before liftoff, one of the girls in my office, myself, and her sister from another office ran downstairs and jumped into her sister's car and we took off down to get as close to the pad as possible and listening to the countdown on radio. As we were at this lane on our left that went to the pad, we quickly parked and ran over to this mound (we learned later that it was a camera site and as close to the pad as we could have possibly gotten) and stood there and watched a spectacular shot that was so bright it almost blinded us as we didn't have our shades with us. No one said anything to us as we worked for Col. Petrone and his nickname was "The Rock!" He was a good guy though. Another time, one of the big ones was going and just as I got to entrance to my building, several people had gathered outside so I waited and shortly, it lifted off and the glass windows and doors in our building were moving like in shock waves! It almost gave me chills. The dog, Lassie made a couple movies out there and I was fortunate enough to get an autographed (paw print) of Lassie along with a nice photo. I still have it tucked away somewhere. I have to get busy and find all that stuff and get rid of some of my junk. I also have a packet of first day launch covers with stamps from several launches. You probably have a lot of mementos from your Rocket Scientist days. Those were the days, weren't they?
You bet-this from Hazel Lewis. Her husband was an engineer and he and his team worked on the Launch Pads. Cool! Huh!