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 This is the United Airlines "class" of flight attendants who graduated from the airline's training program in August of 1964. Joyce's friend, Lynn, is in the top row, second from the left. |
Those "stewardess" days weren't always glamorous
of TheColumnists.com
I’ve always thought that flying is a stolen pleasure for human beings. Birds and bugs were created to fly but not us. When I hear the screeches and roars of the plane I’m on as it hurls down the runway to lift off, I dig my fingernails into my husband’s hand and say, “If God meant man to fly, He’d have given us wings.” This after more than 50 years of traveling by air.
The ground drops away and puffs of fog absorb the sound. The familiar buildings and freeways below turn into miniature sets. The babies stop crying and the fasten your seatbelt signs turn off. We have entered the realm of angels. I look down and think how the sight of mountains, oceans, and icebergs from our cruising altitude was once reserved for the preternatural creatures of the world’s myths.
I watched the new TV show “Pan Am” to see if it would bring me back to my first flight in 1962, the same era as the show. I hoped the actors would convey the mystique and sense of adventure I connected with those who made their living in the sky at the dawn of the jet age.
I know I would never have made it as a stewardess (the term vanished when male flight attendants were hired) when I was young in the ‘60’s. Not only was I a hair under the minimum height of 5’2” that airlines required at the time, but I would be too wrapped up in the fear and awe of flying to be of much help to the passengers.
My first flight was on United Airlines from San Francisco to Salt Lake City where I would meet my fiance. We planned to drive on to his remote hometown in Colorado so he could introduce me to his family. For such a short trip--about two hours--I probably flew in a propeller-driven plane, not a jet. I approached the flight with trepidation. Would the ride be bumpy and terrifying as we crossed the Sierras? What if we plunged into the Bay upon takeoff? I listened to every word as the stewardess described what to do with the life jacket.
I also noted the perfection of her hair and make up. She was beautiful, as all stewardesses were supposed to be, the way I dreamed I could be if I wore professional-style makeup everyday and had my hair done every week. When I asked, she said she knew Charlene (“Charlie”), my fellow journalism major in college, who now flew for United. I relaxed a bit. I was not among strangers. Charlie’s friend invited me to sit next to her in the jump seats in back. The skies turned out to be friendly after all. I made it to Utah and home without using the little bag tucked in with the airline magazine.
Charlie became a stewardess right after graduation because she had never been outside California and, as a journalist, wanted things to write about. She started a book about her adventures but gave up the project when similar books were published.
At a time when a young woman was typically advised to become a teacher, nurse, or secretary, the job of stewardess was a direct call to adventure. My neighbor Lynn, who also flew for United in the 60’s, recalls that many of her training classmates came from farms in the Midwest. Their first flight was the one they took to Chicago for United’s 5-week preparation program.
The training manual laid the strict regulations of appearance on the line. A stewardess must always wear a girdle on duty. She must wear gloves–white wrist length ones for summer and eight-button navy leather ones for winter. Her hair must not be cut extremely short nor extend below the top of the blouse collars when curled. It must not have “unnatural streaks” or extreme colors. And her body size must be no less than 5’2” and 105 to 118 lbs and no more than 5’9” and 125 to 140 lbs – neither anorexic nor grande.
As was the policy then at most airlines, Lynn, Charlie and their colleagues were required to be single and generally no older than 32, although Lynn remembers one 40-year old. When a stewardess married or passed the age limit, she retired and could join “Clipped Wings,” a United Airlines alum group.
Charlie shot down the illusion I had since childhood that stewardesses sought to ground themselves by snagging wealthy businessmen for husbands. When San Francisco columnist Herb Caen wrote that he found them too busy flirting with male passengers to take care of everyone else, she wrote him a jingle which he published:
Romance a male aboard a jet?
I’ve never seen it happen yet.
If they aren’t wearing golden rings
They have on future pilot wings.
But what about those pilots in their dashing navy-style uniforms? Janice, my friend married to Bennie, a retired Pan Am pilot, explained her defense in the face of potential competition. In her Southern drawl she declared, “I made sure I looked at least as good as what he left on the plane.”
“Those pilots in ‘Pan Am’ look like boys.” she scoffed. In real life they were usually married and hired with substantial flight experience. Bennie had spent nine years in the Air Force. The captain would be around 55 years old.
The full name–Pan American World Airways–had a special cachet for me. Their seaplane clippers were based on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. My dad took me to watch one slowly circle the Bay on its last flight to Hawaii at the end of WWII. He showed me pictures of the interior in a magazine. With lounge areas, stairs, even bunks, the plane was a small luxury liner with wings.
The bunks came in handy because it took 18 hours to fly from San Francisco to Honolulu.
As late as the 1960’s, Pam Am was the only U.S. airline to fly all over the world. The stewardesses were required to speak several languages. A number of them came from other countries.
But could they cook?
Bennie lent me several menus from First Class. “Pan American Cuisine,” they proclaimed on the dinner menu, “by Maxim’s de Paris.” The menus themselves were works of art. Measuring 10 x 13”, the folders were made of heavy stock with a gold cord binding the cover to the parchment content page. Inside were listings of hors d’oeveres, a selection of entrees, salad, cheeses, dessert, and of course coffee or tea. You could drink yourself silly on free choices of sherry, Manhattans, Martinis, Whiskey Sours, and Tom or vodka Collins. You could sip wines from Burgundy or Bordeaux or “champagne specially selected for Pan American.” You hoped for no turbulence.
While I now count myself lucky to get a packet of honey roasted peanuts on a 1-hour flight on Southwest, Charlie had to serve dinner on a 45-minute flight without a cart. She recalls her maiden voyage, when she was the only stewardess for 43 passengers. One man helped her hand out the meals, which the passengers in coach balanced on their pillows since there were no pull-down trays. Charlie forgot to lock the hot food boxes. The moment the plain landed, it reversed the propellers. The sudden stop flung the box doors open and food went flying through the cabin. The fur coat she had just handed back to a passenger caught the flying peas.
“I thought being a stewardess would be glamorous,” she wrote me, “but this was certainly not!”
Since 1962 I have flown to Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, as well as to Hawaii, Alaska, and around the U.S. I’ve watched flying become mass transit. Free meals have vanished, except for overseas flights, and so has leg room and the attitude that flying is something special. Planes have turned into flying Greyhound buses.
After 18 years Charlie, Lynn and other United stewardesses won a class action suit that allowed them to fly if they were married. Lynn returned to work; Charlie decided not to bump the junior flight attendants off the line and eventually became a travel agent. “I discovered I love cruises more than flying,” she said.
Bennie flew Pan Am around the world from 1966 until 1991 when it went bankrupt. He still shows extraordinary pride in his airline. His family took advantage of free air travel and also saw the world. Chile was a favorite place.
Lynn passed her love of flying to her daughter, Shelley, who also flies for United. “I loved hearing my mom’s stories from when she was a stewardess,” she wrote. “We worked five trips together and actually worked the same cart a couple of times. So fun!”
Time has brought change. Now a “flight attendant,” she no longer has to wear a girdle or meet a weight requirement. She says their average age is 42. United now flies internationally and Shelley has seen the world. “Flying is easier, since we no longer serve hot meals and don’t even hand out pretzels anymore.” But it’s brutal when they fly from San Francisco to Hawaii and back in the same day.
She concludes, “I couldn’t imagine another job. Every flight is different and I never know what I’ll encounter next!”
Despite a strange subplot about spies, I think “Pan Am” flies on course and I’ve recorded the series. I catch the same enthusiasm about flying as Bennie, Charlie, Lynn and Shelley have shown me. Bennie lent me a stack of menus and books about Pan Am. Lynn shared her class picture and training manual.
As for me, once I get past the cattle call and body scans at the airport and stuff myself into my seat in coach, I look forward to the sights from 30,000 feet--the crack in the Sierras that creates Yosemite Valley, the parade of snowcapped volcanoes that form the Cascade Range, the fissure in the dry hills of central California that forms the San Andreas Fault. I love it when the pilot seems to play tour guide and takes us slow and easy over San Francisco on our descent.
©2011 by Joyce Kiefer. The "Pan Am" poster is courtesy of ABC. This column first posted Oct. 3, 2011.
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