1963 ~ BOMB IN A BRIEFCASE? ` BOWLING BY DESI'S ` BUSHELS OF ORANGES AND GRAPEFRUITS LEFT BEHIND?

February 25, 1963

Dear Mother,

Our flight was routine except we had a little excitement before we took off. One of the last men to get on the plane went back to the lav with a briefcase. He stayed in there a few minutes and then came out. I was the only one who saw him and told Diane. (She was my roommate and there were just two of us on this plane.) The door had just shut so Diane went up to tell the captain. They already started the engines, and immediately the flight engineer came back and searched all the containers in the lav. Then they shut off the engines, pushed the stairs back up and three agents came on and searched the lav inside and out. I was the first one to go in there right after the man came out and I was sure I smelled liquor. But later, there wasn't any smell and the agents left and they shut the door. The man stopped Dianne and said he had important papers in his brief case and had to keep it with him at all times. He said that one other time he went in the lav with his brief case and the same thing happened.  Later, he stopped Diane again and said he took his "important papers" out and put them in his pocket. Can you imagine? How stupid.  All he was doing was drinking and I'm sure his "important papers" was a bottle or flask.

So, that's the newest and latest news.

Love, Tish



February 19, 1963

Dear Mother,

Well, one year ago today was my first day of training. I can't believe how time has flown. Yet, I can look at it as you do...it seems like ages since I lived at home and worked at Chicago Rawhide. Pretty soon it will be a year we've lived at 438 W. 62nd St.

I've got so much to catch up on with you that I hardly know where to begin. My date the other night turned out as I thought ~ he was a fink. He was nice, but far from my type. He's about 4 inches shorter than me and I felt like his mother. We went to the show and saw "Two For the See Saw" with Shirley Mclain and Robert Mitchum. After that, we went to the top of the Hilton for a few drinks and danced ~ which really made me feel funny. Hope he doesn't call again.

Friday I flew with Bob Reid again and the F/O was Gordon Macintosh. Gordon was based in ORD for 5 years and knows Kathleen. We went bowling in DAY and my legs still ache. (Dayton, Ohio - stayed at a little motel we called "Desi's" because that was the woman's name who ran it or owned it...Large lady who was always sitting at a desk which was where we "checked in". She would open the desk drawer and it was filled with cash. Oh, those simple days of long ago. Next door was a bowling alley and we always went bowling and drank beer when we had a long enough DAY layover.)

I would really like to talk to you but I figured out my phone bill and it came to $19.00! Ugh! Can't afford to call. I bet your phone bill is staggering. My paycheck was only $68.00 this week because of my personal time off. (This was a two week paycheck!) My expense check on the 25th won't be much because last month I was off sick and didn't fly much. 

I'm enclosing stamps that were on the newspapers you sent me. They weren't cancelled.

More later.

Love, Tish



This is one flight I will never forget. Crew consisted of three guys in cockpit and two hostesses. We left for a three day trip - went "non-routine" and came home six days later. We had a layover in Miami and we all bought huge bags of oranges and grapefruits. We were supposed to fly from MIA back to KC. However, due to bad weather and delays, our three day trip turned into six days of dragging bushel bags of oranges and grapefruits around the country.

March 7, 1963

Dear Mother,

I made it home ~ finally. We'll never forget this flight. We had 32:14 flying hours and 124 expense hours. Let me tell you, we sure got attached to the crew. Thank God we had a decent group or we would have been out of our minds! But being with the same men for 6 days is really different. Their wives were at the airport to meet them. I'm sure they wanted to look us over to be sure we weren't "hussy" looking, if you know what I mean. It made me feel funny because they really stared at us.

Tuesday night went went out for dinner  in DCA at a fabulous seafood place. We had such fun! After that, we went to a "drinking establishment" and danced. These fellas were an absolute scream! They carried us across Pennsylvania Ave. at 2:00 a.m. because it was raining and the street was full of puddles. I laughed until my stomach ached. (Well, it's no wonder their wives were worried. They were probably calling their rooms past midnight and not getting an answer and imagining all kinds of things.)
Of course, once again, we didn't get much sleep. (Gosh! I was mor of a partyer than I remember!) Because we were non-routine, we didn't know when we would leave DCA. Just after getting to our room, our Capt. called at 2:30 a.m. and told us he got word we were going out at 06:30. And not out of DCA but BAL! My hair was so dirty and grubby and we were pooped! But, we were glad to know we were going home.

This last day was a long one. We had to get up at 05:45 and take a cab to BAL (Baltimore, MD) to get the flight. The weather was terrible. It was so foggy you couldn't see a block in front of you and it was pouring rain. We didn't put the people on because it was too foggy to take off. After 45 min. the fog lifted so we loaded. We left the ramp and were warming up the engines (prop plane) and the cockpit got word that DCA - where we were landing - was below limits. So we sat at the end of the runway for an hour. I was up in the cockpit most of the time listening to jokes. Finally we took off and landed in DCA (finally!), then STL and we got back home at 4:30.

We got the oranges and grapefruits home o.k. It was so funny. I'll never laugh so hard again. We stored the them in the ramp office in DCA, thinking, of course, that we would be leaving out of DCA. But, they had us leaving out of BAL, and becasue we knew we were stopping back in DCA, we didn't take the bags with us in the cab to BAL - there wouldn't have been room anyway! So we left them there and were going to pick them up when we landed from BAL. Well, when the weather was bad in DCA, we were afraid we'd have to overfly it. Ed  (the Captain) said we couldn't overfly and we would wait until it cleared if we had to wait 24 hours ~ we were not going to leave those bags of oranges and grapefruit after lugging them all over the country. That was hysterical! We were picturing all the ramp guys and agents eating our oranges and grapefruits.

I sliced and cut up three of them for the crew after we took off from DCA and even put a cherry on each of them (you taught me that!) They ordered their coffee and I surprised them taking the grapefruit up too. They couldn't get over how thoughtful that was. Dianne and I sure got some nice compliments from Ed. He said he had only been flying 3 months as Captain but had never had 2 hostesses that did as good a job. He had told me Saturday that I was a "real hostess" and I knew how to keep people happy. He said some girls don't know how to handle people from their ass (that's an exact quote.) (I can't believe I wrote this to my mother!)He gave me all those compliments after he had been in the cabin with me on the last day. I had several wings for him to sign and was holding the sweetest little boy I had ever seen. His name was Michael and he was a blonde headed  blue eyed little doll. His father and mother were very good looking - both very nice and sharply dressed. (Everyone was sharply dressed in '63, I wonder what made them exceptional to me?) I wanted to take him home with home with me. Not bragging or anything, but I know I am doing a good job and some days are better than others. I can always tell when I've done my work well ~ I feel so satisfied and happy. (Gosh! I loved my job so much!)

Well, that's it for now.

Love, Tish