Newspaper Page Text
Page 14
Griffin Daily News Thursday, Sepfember 19,1974
Friendly skies weren’t always
By Murray Olderman
MINERAL, Calif. - (NEA)
— Soon the snows will leave a
deep fluff of white to isolate
this little community that sits
on State Highway 36 in the
lap of the big mountain, Mt.
Lassen, and Jessie Carter
Bronson — Jaye to her few
neighbors — will have the
long winter again to con
template that excitement of
many years ago.
When she was an airline
stewardess, the very first of
the airline stewardesses.
There were eight and the
year was 1930 when commer
cial air travel was in its in
fancy. Young Jessie Carter,
who came out of a little farm
community in the upper
Sacramento Valley called
Los Molinos where her first
mode of travel was a horse
and buggy, was a newly
registered nurse in San Fran
cisco.
“I had a nurse friend,” she
recalls, “who said she was
going to go out and take an
examination to be a stewar
dess. I had never heard of the
word. I just went with her.
And they hired me. They
hired only nurses.
“I had never been in an
airplane in my life.”
Kris Thomsen, who is
model slim with flashing
dark eyes and a compelling
smile, is a “now” stewardess.
She is one of 7,000 who fly just
for United Airlines alone. She
lives in Forster City, a
bedroom community of split
levels, condominiums and
manicured spits of lawn
dredged out of San Francisco
Bay.
She taught third grade in
her native Wisconsin for a
year and a half until “1
decided I didn’t like
children.” She became a
stewardess because she
wanted to travel and went
through Inflight Training
School in Chicago for five
and-a-half weeks early in
1973. There were 63 girls in
the class and most, like Kris,
had been to college. She was
the third oldest in the class at
28. “It was extremely awk
ward for my age," she says.
“There was a lot of giggling
1 I You’re Invited... |
/I II I
/ . A I
i ' S
to
Open House at Georgia Power’s
New Griffin Office
Friday, September 20
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Come join the special celebration at our new Griffin office in the
North Gate Shopping Center, N. Highway 41. There’ll be free
refreshments. So bring the kids along.
At our new office you may apply for electric service . . .
pay electric bills . . . and arrange for the many free advisory
services we offer our customers. You can shop from a full line
of the latest appliances. Or have your old ones repaired.
Remember this special date: Friday, September 20. We’ll
be expecting you.
W. JACKIE DOSTER
Local Manager
Georgia Power Company
A citizen wherever we serve®
/ 1 I
******
T' iIBMfIHF
and running around.”
She received a choice
assignment by being based in
San Francisco. ‘We are
mostly just numbers," she
The glamor of a stewar
dess' job has been more
apparent than real from
the start. In addition to
air sickness, the pioneer
stews sometimes had
seating problems.
For Jessie Carter (right
and second from right
above), there was little
excitement, despite one
forced landing.
For Kris Thomsen (left),
satisfied passengers
provide psychological
compensation.
says. “Your number is called
and you just go out. Out of
San Francisco, I am No. 906.”
“It was rough work,” re
members Jessie Carter. “One
of the first girls got airsick
and had to quit in two
weeks.”
Her run was from Oakland
to Cheyenne, Wyo. There was
no airport in San Francisco.
She commuted across the
Bay in a Coast Guard cutter
which had been a rum run
ner.
“You left in the evening,"
she says, “and you flew all
night and got to Cheyenne in
the morning.” There were
stops in places such as Reno
and Salt Lake City to drop off
the mail.
“In Reno,” she recalls,
“people would come out and
hang over the fences to watch
us land. It was a big event."
The planes were Boeing
Tri-motor 80A's which clung
close to the tree tops. There
was only one stewardess. The
most passengers she had
were five, “People on
emergency trips or business
men,' she said. She remem
bers President Herbert
Hoover's son was on one trip.
Mail bags were piled in the
cabin and sometimes she
didn’t get a seat so she sat on
a mail bag.
“We had a chest which car
ried cocktails with a little
sherry in them," she says.
"And we provided sand
wiches. They brought their
own booze."
Kris Thomsen has read a
duty list of the early stewar
desses: dust the window sills,
make sure the curtains are
pulled back and clean, etc.
“I think it would have been
more glamorous at that
time," she muses. “There is a
standard joke in this busi
ness. A stewardess has her
flash light out and is looking
around on the floor. Some
body asks her what she’s
doing. ‘l’m looking for the
glamor in this job,' she
answers."
A stewardess can work
only eight hours in 24, but her
duty time (hanging around
the airport, etc.) can amount
to 15 hours. They’re not
allowed to drink 12 hours
before a flight.
“They give us layovers of
11 hours and 20 minutes,"
smiles Kris, “That's the com
pany joke.”
She worked one charter
flight for a national service
club to New Orleans in which
174 men went through 660
miniature whiskey bottles, 30
bottles of wine and two cases
of beer.
“You can imagine what
condition these people were
in.” she says. “You re sober
and they're breathing on you
and paiting you. They wait
till you start serving a meal
and they try to put those pins
on you. I was carrying five
trays and this guy hands me
his and says, ‘Here, dummy,
take this.’
“There are girls who’ll get
back at them: T)h, excuse me,
1 didn't mean to pour this all
over your lap.’"
Kris grins.
“You do have to like people
in this job."
“They wouldn't allow us to
have anything to do with the
pilots, co-pilots or passen
gers," says Jessie Carter
Bronson. “We were all young,
it was a different era. I was a
naive, innocent girl. So we
had to stay in the hotel room,
stay over a day in Cheyenne
to rest and then fly back."
She was paid $125 a month.
She didn’t consider it danger
ous work, “I didn’t have
enough sense to be scared.”
Her plane once came down in
a pasture outside Sacramen
to. They built a bonfire while
the pilot walked three miles
to the nearest phone.
She quit after three
months. A lt wasn't that excit
ing a job," she says. “You
were in the air and you were
tired all the time and your
ears bothered you."
Her husband, Lewis (Chub)
Bronson, is the magistrate of
Lassen Volcanic National
Park. In the winter when
things are quiet they’ll fly out
to Acapulco or Hawaii.
“I don’t even get free
trips,” smiles sprightly
Jessie.
“I’m the black sheep in our
family,” says Kris Thomsen,
“because I gave up teaching
and became a ‘nasty’ stewar
dess. My mother has the idea
you go to some strange city
and the pilots and stewar
desses are together. We don't
even talk to pilots. There’s a
communication problem. But
all these vile stories.
"We sit around and have a
few beers and invariably it
gets around to airline talk
and you're bored and go back
to your room."
Her monthly base pay is
SSBB for 65 hours of flying
time, but she can fly up to 85
hours at an extra sll per hour
and clear S7OO. “As a
teacher,” she grimaces, “I
figured out for the time I put
in I was making less than a
dollar an hour.”
She maintains a normal
social life. She is divorced
and lives alone, by choice, in
a studio apartment. She
drives a Volkswagen, the
only item she took out of her
marriage.
“I like the diversified
schedule of a stewardess,”
she says. “I can’t handle a 9-
to-5 job, knowing I have to be
in an office. I’m starting to
enjoy weekdays off and not
fighting crowds.”
She also must be good at
her job. She has received 10
“orchid" letters, from pas
sengers complimenting her
work.
“Some little old lady gets
off and says, ‘You made my
whole trip,”’ relates Kris.
“And you’re good for another
three or four days."
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN J
not park ■
■
Get the message
MT. CLEMENS, MICH—The owner of this car obviously doesn’t believe in signs, but this
particular sign in the parking lot of St, Athanasius Church, in Mt. Clemens, just may carry a
heavier penalty than a $5 parking ticket But then, let he who is without a parking place,
grab the first spot (UPI)
19 killed
in crash
VALDOSTA, Ga. (UPI)-An
Air Force pilot was killed
Wednesday night when his
Northrup T-38 training aircraft
crashed about two miles south
of Moody AFB here.
The pilot, whose name is be
ing withheld pending notification
of next of kin, was returning
from Patrick AFB, Fla., on a
navigational training mission
when the plane went down
about 8:50 p.m., according to
Col. Phillip C. Gast, command
er of the 38th Flying Training
Wing at Moody.
The cause of the accident has
not been determined. A board
of officers will investigate the
accident.
Doris Day
awarded
$22-million
LOS ANGELES (UPI) —
Actress Doris Day was award
ed more than $22 million
Wednesday in a fraud suit
against her attorney, Jerome
Rosenthal.
Superior Court Judge Lester
E. Olson said Rosenthal was
guilty of the “grossest negligen
ce” in business which the judge
said “stinks to high heaven.”
Rosenthal was found guilty of
defrauding Miss Day and her
late husband, Marty Melcher,
in a variety of business
ventures, including speculation
in oil wells in Texas, Oklahoma
and Kentucky and in the
construction of two large hotels.
Included in the $22,835,646
judgment was $3 million in
punitive damages.
They like
same thing
LANSING, Mich. (UPI) —
Rats and executives have
something in common —their
enjoyment of cocktails after a
hard day.
“Stress appears to induce a
preference for alcohol in
animals that ordinarily
wouldn’t have much to do with
it,” Michigan State University
psychologist Glenn Hatton said.
“Furthermore, rat drinking
patterns seem to mimic those
of harried executives.”
In a test, Hatton removed
rats from their home cages and
put them into a box where they
received a mild electric shock
—the stress. Though both water
and alcohol were available in
the box, the rats touched
neither. But once back in their
home cases, Hatton said, the
stressed rats began to guzzle
alcohol.
Hatton concluded that alcohol
may help the body cope with
stress.
RECOVERY TEAM
SAIGON (UPI) — The Joint
Casualty Resolution Center
here is staffed with 160
American troops charged with
recovering the bodies of 1,100
U.S. servicemen still missing in
Indochina. The unit’s budget is
sl.l million a year.
r ’k I
2 gr
Out for stroll
MONTREAL—Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and
his 26-year-old wife, Margaret, speak to newsman, after
taking a stroll in the gardens at the Royal Victoria
Hospital here. Mrs. Trudeau has been at the hospital for 10
days, and said she would remain in hospital “Under
psychiatric care for severe emotional stress” for a while
longer. (UPI)
fifiin FA
INFLATION....
We’ve Prepared
A Real Good '
| FRIDAY SPECIAL**)
ftiiMy fried Iktetat
FISH DINNER
—ggTM 2 pieces Fish
/fff. With The
KkK K ■
> ■ ■ ■ Trimmings
% REG. $1.45
y" SPECIAL
SAVE JI 19
26*
2 Convenient Locations
KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN
OF GRIFFIN
131 East Solomon St. Phone 227-3678
1477 West Mclntosh Road Phone 228-2432
WE ARE NOW FEATURING SUDDEN SERVICE!
No Need To Call In - Your Order Should Be Ready Upon
Payment.