No Dream Is Too High - Buzz Aldrin Page 0,35

emergencies that we hoped would never happen, but we needed to know what to do should such hazards or even catastrophes occur. Some of the training was somber, some was extremely difficult, and some was actually fun!

We did survival training in the hot Nevada desert, as well as in the sweltering rain forest jungles of Panama and in parts of South America, in case our reentry spacecraft landed off course when we returned to Earth. We learned how to escape a sinking space capsule in case we encountered a problem after splashdown, how to use our parachutes as clothing, as well as how to build makeshift shelters under the worst conditions and to live off the land or sea.

I discovered that I could stay alive in the jungle by catching an iguana and eating small chunks of its claws each day, while keeping the iguana alive and wrapped around my neck. I thought this was a rather ingenious way of maintaining my food supply in the rain forest. Iguana and boa constrictor—sometimes cooked, sometimes not—were actually quite tasty. If you are thinking of the “survivor” shows on television, multiply that exponentially and you will come close to understanding astronaut survival training.

At the same time, my family and I have always loved animals of every kind. My oldest son, Mike, was an avid animal lover, too, and my daughter Jan owned an Appaloosa horse. My younger son, Andy, never saw a dog that he didn’t want to bring home. When my family and I moved to a new home after I had returned from the Moon, we purposely purchased property where we could have a variety of animals. Dogs, cats, goats, “rolling” trained pigeons, sheep, chickens, and of course, Jan’s horse, all roamed freely around our backyard. We had a barn with two stalls—one for the horse and one for the chickens. We once even had a monkey that we had rescued and brought home with us.

We should have had a sign in our yard that read, “Animals ‘R’ Us.” I love animals!

Unfortunately, during the gala in London, I got so swept up in the moment that I forgot who I was addressing. When I launched into a story about staying alive by nibbling pieces of an iguana, to say they were not impressed would be a gross understatement. More precisely, they were outraged! They didn’t care that I had been an animal lover all my life, or that I had walked on the Moon, or anything else. They were ready to have my hide!

I apologized as best I could and then made a hasty exit. It was not my finest hour. It was the last time that group invited me to their parties, but I’ve certainly been invited to many a gala since. Hey, we’re all human, and we all make mistakes. When you do, don’t make a big deal about it. Apologize, do whatever you can to make it right, and keep moving on.

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN SMART. God blessed me with a good mind and the ability to understand certain things that others have trouble comprehending. But there is a big difference between being smart and being a smart-ass. For most of my life, I’ve been both.

As any of my family members or my fellow astronauts will tell you, I’ve always had a healthy dose of self-esteem and an appreciation of my abilities. I tend to say whatever I’m thinking, with few filters, and I’m not bashful about what I believe and don’t believe. Moreover, I don’t have much patience with incompetence or mental laziness.

These traits have served me well over the years. But there have been times—I know this is hard for some people to believe—when I might have come across as arrogant, stubborn, inflexibly opinionated, and totally devoid of tact.

Someone asked me recently, “Buzz, have you ever said the words, ‘I was wrong’?”

“No,” I answered without a moment of hesitation. But I might have been wrong about that.

Still, people who know me recognize that I have unusual talents, and I know it, too. The danger, of course, is that my greatest strengths could also reveal my most serious flaws, and sometimes I didn’t realize that.

During Gemini 9, Jim Lovell and I were the backup crew, so we were in Mission Control during the launch. Once it appeared that everything was going well and the crew was on their way, Jim and I were no long needed, so I left. On the way home, I stopped off to