To: Mr. Anthony Lorenzo, CEO Blickman Industries
Dear Mr. Lorenzo
I am not sure if this story might interest you. My father, John Thomas Auchard, worked for Blickman for over 40 years. He was quietly proud (he spoke of it to me but hardly to anyone else) of the fact that Saul Blickman himself had asked him to make the metal box that the moon rocks would be put in on the moon.
In 1969, during my time at NYU, I worked in New York Mayor John Lindsay’s office. Lindsay invited a few of us to meet the astronauts on the steps of City Hall on the day of their big parade. Decades later, in 2010, I had another opportunity to see Buzz Aldrin at a Washington, DC Embassy event, where I introduced myself, reminded him of our meeting in 1969, and mentioned that while working for Blickman my father, John Auchard, had made the metal box the moon rocks had been placed in. Immediately Mr. Aldrin reacted. “That BOX!!!!” he said. “It was my job to put in the rocks and carry the box back to Apollo 11.” I nodded. “But,” he said, “it was my job to carry the box off Apollo to the right place back on earth, AND ON EARTH THE BOX WEIGHED SIX TIMES HEAVIER THAN IT HAD ON THE MOON, AND I COULD BARELY LIFT IT. I CURSED THAT BOX!”
As I was about to leave the party, I went over to Mr. Aldrin to say goodbye. “John,” he said, “it was really good to see you again.” That “again” was pure kindness touched by nostalgia, nostalgia, surely, for us both. He could not have remembered the grinning 1969 kid from, uh, Adam.
Best wishes,
John Francis Auchard
