Kenny & I got to spend last weekend with a great group of fellow Lord Nelson tug owners [at the Urbanna, VA, LNVT Rendezvous]. One of them was Bob [Allnutt, Victory 37VT02], who has been a gracious host whenever Highland Mary has passed by his dock. That reminded me - I meant to share some of his tales from his days running the National Geographic photo lab. During the Apollo moon missions, he took over the entire top floor of a Cape Canaveral motel for a makeshift lab. Nat Geo had loaned a number of full-time photographers and staff to NASA, and shared the space with Time, Life, and other publications in a pool situation. Bob remembered working 36 hours straight during and after a launch: "They would open the door and just throw bananas at us to keep us going." 😆 Helicopters would drop fresh film and other supplies. Because of the extreme heat, ice was an absolute necessity to keep the darkroom chemicals cool and usable. As an aside, Bob also mentioned: "Life magazine was notorious for burning up cameras during launches." Many thanks to Bob for his contributions documenting this amazing time in American history.
Kristen Bishop [from her Facebook page]
Highland Mary 37VT18
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