Glamour, Glamour Everywhere but Not a Drop to Drink
by Pamelagrace Beatty
The title is a misquote from The Ancient Mariner, “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.” The main character was dying of thirst on a ship sailing the seas, surrounded by water he couldn’t drink because it was saltwater. Being a flight attendant in the 70s was, for me, like that. I did not see the glamour of the job or how fortunate I was to be selected for it. Frequently, we overlook the good in our lives because we focus too much on the negatives. Yes, there were negatives. Flying had its ups and downs (Couldn’t resist that – sorry!), but given the chance, I would do it differently next time. Here’s why:
After graduation from stew school, (stewardess), I was domiciled (based) in New York City. I had one week to find a place to live. Really? I knew nothing about New York. I got a cramp in my neck just walking around Manhattan gaping up at the skyscrapers. We had none in Seattle at that time. The Smith Tower was the tallest and pretty much the only tall building in downtown Seattle at that time. I had never seen skyscrapers and couldn’t help but gawk. Was it obvious that I was not from there? Let me count the ways…
Fun Flying
The Seattle express experience to New York life was traumatic. I blame it all on my mother who did an amazing job of running interference for me growing up, and so I never saw the icky or brutal side of life in the city, although there was one. Both my parents came from the south and they never discussed their past. Not unusual for Black folks who have escaped the racism and pain of being Black in the south. Yep, there was also racism up here in “God’s country,” as my mother called Seattle, but not like Little Rock, Arkansas where she was raised. I still don’t know the details of her childhood. She and her sisters took that information to the grave with them. But I know there was a story. So, she protected me – until I moved to New York. Then, I was on my own!
You know where I’m going with this. Like my parents not telling me about their lives in the south, I will spare you the details of my awakening in New York. The one thing I will say is that I only lived there a year and a half, but it felt like seven! Many beliefs I held were shattered during that time. Spoiler Alert, though: Even more of my beliefs were crushed when I moved to Kansas City, due to its proximity to the south. But, I felt I was lucky to get out of New York alive.
But let’s talk about being a flight attendant. Here I was with the most glamorous, or so people believed, job ever. And how luck was I to be in the most exciting city in the country? Yet, I was not finding the glamor! All of us newbies were on call. That means at any time day or night, we could be called to work a flight. We couldn’t go out to any restaurants, or take in a movie, or go shopping unless we could still get to the airport within an hour, in uniform, bag packed for a flight. So, we just didn’t go out. Glamorous, yes? Meh.
I found a place to live with three other flight attendants. One was senior and was never home when we were. The other two were junior, newbies like me, and were there all the time. We were not supposed to be there at the same time. We had been told that wouldn’t happen. But it did. We tended to get called for flights at the same time, which left us home at the same time – together. I can’t begin to tell you how bored we were.
Meeting some mafioso spiced things up a bit, perhaps too much. One day my two roommates who were new with the airline, like I was, came home burbling about the cool guys they had just met. They described them as sort of tall, had dark hair, were mysterious and handsome. The women said they were suavely dressed in black suits and vague about what they did for a living. I told my newbie, clueless roommates that guys with dark hair, black suits and no visible means of support, were probably not the men their mothers would want them to marry. I know that sounds like I’m stereotyping but hey, I was right. I was concerned about these guys because I had already heard of flight attendants dating men in the mafia and having very bad experiences when they wanted to stop. I mean very bad. So when my roommates said the guys wanted to take them out, I insisted on going with them. The two were too naïve to be left on their own.
We were to go meet them at some address we didn’t know of. No one drives in New York so guys don’t usually come pick women up, especially for casual meetings. We found the place but were puzzled and thought the cab driver had gotten the address wrong. But there were the men my roommates had met standing in front of a flower shop! The guys had actually invited us to meet them at a flower shop! Had my roommates not watched the movies? This was not good.
My roommates seemed calm. They introduced me to the men who asked us to wait outside while they went into the backroom for a “meeting”. I strongly suggested that we all leave immediately and go home! My roommates refused. After a rather long time, the guys came out and took the three of us to lunch at a nice, you guessed it, Italian restaurant. After talking with the guys and asking more questions my roommates realized they were over their heads. We got away unscathed and less naïve. Fortunately for us, the men were as disinterested in us as we were in them.
Lions, Tigers and Hijackers
The most exciting part of our existence was our flights. Actually, there were no lions and tigers at this time, but being hijacked was a concern. Flight attendants today are given self-defense lessons that include how to disable and maybe even actually kill an attacker without having a weapon. The new training made one acquaintance of mine quit the job after working for years. Self-defense. Good thing to know, yes? Maybe. When I was flying, however, we were simply instructed that if a seeming-hijacker came up to us and wanted to get into the cockpit, we should say “No.” And if they had a gun, we were to ask them if it was real. Seriously? I don’t know which is worse, asking if a real gun is real, or trying to figure out how to physically disable a would be hijacker in the middle of the aisle on an airplane, inflight. I learned some self-defense techniques – including fatal ones, while studying karate in college, but I never used them and would not ever want to be in a position to have to. I confess, I am glad to know about them though, just in case I need them. However, I’m not feelin’ the idea of trying to use them in the narrow aisle of an airplane mid-flight.
Besides the hijacking concern, another aspect that created excitement was trying to get the beverages and meals out of the galley and back into the galley before the plane landed. This was no problem on “long hauls” like San Francisco to New York or international trips. It was a major problem on short hauls like New York to Chicago or L.A. to San Francisco. We had to do it all with a smile and never let on that if we failed, the airline would face thousands of dollars in fines. Now you know why your flight attendant may be somewhat brusque when doing a food and beverage service on a short flight.
I had my own personal excitement to deal with as a new flight attendant. I would get airsick on takeoffs and landings, the worst possible time to get airsick. No opportunity to get out of my seat on takeoff and go to the bathroom to throw up. No chance once the plane touched down either. And if the airline found out a flight attendant got airsick, she/he was finished! Thank heaven for Dramamine. The aftereffects of this cure, however, were almost as bad as the airsickness. To my own credit, I learned that if I simply thought happy thoughts on takeoff and landing, not “Oh my God, are we going to get in the air OK?” or “I truly hope we don’t crash, but if we do, how many people can I get off the plane before it goes up in flames?” I was fine. So, I was able to take myself off Dramamine.
If I had it to do all over again, I would still become a flight attendant, but I would take more joy in it, versus freaking out over living in New York, and possible plane crashes while I was on them! On the positive side I saw cities in the U.S. I would never have gone to because I would have had no reason to (think Detroit, Columbus, Ohio, Dayton, Ohio) or couldn’t afford to (San Francisco, L.A., Denver, Chicago, Miami). I got to travel internationally to many cities I would not have seen any time soon because I couldn’t afford to travel to them either. I got to experience living in New York which was and still is one of the richest (and perhaps scariest) experiences of my life. None of this would have happened if I had stayed safe and secure in Seattle.
In flight attendant training, we were told that we were chosen out of 500 applicants. I didn’t believe them until I became a flight attendant recruiter, and yes, we went through about 500 applications to get one good hire. Who knew? So, I would be more grateful now for that opportunity. I think that we frequently don’t see the good, but tend to focus on the downside of things. Life is a better experience when we can embrace the good.
