The first time I flew on a plane, I was nine years old and arrayed (surely the verb) in a travel suit: a navy blue-and-white checked pleated skirt with a matching jacket. I carried a stuffed autograph penguin, and I wore a white sailor hat with a red ribbon. Ditto my sister, except she had a blue-trimmed sailor hat. These days no one in her right mind would put a nine-year old and a five-year old in such a get-up to fly for 10 hours, but not many kids flew then, and besides, everything was dressier.
I thought about this after reading Jon Carroll's recent piece in the SF Chronicle about what it was like to fly years ago. No passengers in flip-flops and shorts; no surly, burned-out flight attendants; and always service with a smile. Plus there was room for your knees.
Back then, flight attendants were "air hostesses," and my sister and I coveted an air hostess kit that came on the market. My parents refused to buy it for us, but the Concello girls next door had one, and the five of us would play with it for hours in our backyard. There were navy blue hats and pin-on wings, trays and dishes, even stationery. The "passengers" would sit in a row of patio chairs, what my dad referred to as "ass baskets," and the hostesses would pretend they were Annette Funicello, heroine of the moment, and wait on people. Everyone wanted to be a hostess. It was boring being a passenger, and you didn't get to wear a hat.
Jerry's son is married to an airline pilot, and she doesn't think much of "FAs," as she refers to them. She's a petite, glamorous blonde who is sometimes mistaken for an FA, which does not please her, and she has a hat that's more like a policeman's, which she hates wearing. She's in charge of everyone, even the ground crew, and the bar is hers to throw open if there are delays. Hard for little girls to imagine in the Annette Funicello days, when, I might add, a hostess spilled orange salad dressing on my sailor hat.
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