I was very fortunate to be at the Seattle museum of flight on a day when Brian Shul, the author of the linked piece, was giving a lecture, relating many of the anecdotes written there. He seemed a pretty interesting guy.
I was also fortunate enough to see a real SR71 at an air show once.
Me too, at Mildenhall in the mid 1980s, absolutely awesome. I'll never forget it. At one point they flew it at low-level along the display line on one engine.