I'd waited for this phone call my whole life. It came while I was visiting family in Texas. I was just about to graduate from Cosmetology School in Florida where I was living at the time when I took a few days off to travel. There was a hair stylist job waiting for me at a trendy salon once I passed the State Bar Examination. In the meanwhile, I worked the afternoon shift at the salon as one of four receptionists while attending beauty school mornings.

Circumstances were destined to change and here I was, navigating my way toward the Dallas Fort Worth Airport (DFW) to meet with the Director of Flight Attendant Training. I quickly checked my hair and make-up in the rear view mirror; in spite of the stifling Dallas heat they were holding up. Unaccustomed to the volume of traffic, I nervously wound my way around the twists, turns and loops of the immense airport trying to reach my destination.

During beauty school I had met a lovely senior patron who came in to the school for her weekly shampoo-set and occasional permanent wave. We had chatted often enough to become friendly over the months and upon learning of my impending graduation and planned visit to Texas, she had asked me to look up her daughter during my stay. These were the days when a long distance phone call was considered a luxury and was a rare and occasional event to the average person. When we'd said our goodbyes, the woman handed me one of her daughter’s business cards upon which I assured her that I would call on her behalf when I got to Dallas.

As fortune would have it, the daughter was a high ranking employee of an International Airline and after we had visited for a few moments on the phone, she learned of my long-term desire to work as a flight attendant. We had a pleasant conversation and she thanked me for taking care of her Mother in Florida whom she missed dearly.

After we hung up the daughter made a couple of calls to people in other departments. Within about an hour I received a phone call that came straight out of my dreams. I was invited for an interview in the flight attendant training department.

Naturally this set off a flurry of activity on my part, searching for an appropriate outfit to wear. I had packed for vacation; none of my clothes would be suitable for an interview. Mom and I launched a frantic shopping campaign at Monnig’s Department store in downtown Fort Worth.

The first interview went smoother than I ever expected, mostly covering basic information exchange and her scoping out personality and appearance. The day after my first interview, I got a second phone call inviting me to return for a group interview. This would include the entire group of finalists all being interviewed together as a group. The survivors of this session would have individual followup sessions conducted by a panel of airline personnel including a couple of pilots, senior Flight Attendants and some training gurus.

I had barely returned home to Mom’s when the next call came. I had passed the interrogation and was being offered a job as a flight attendant! This meant I needed to return to Florida, graduate from cosmetology school, sell my furniture, quit my job, vacate my apartment and move to Texas in time for the next training class the following month.

I made arrangements to take my State Bar examination for cosmetology during the drive from Florida by routing my trip through Pensacola. That way I could still apply for my license to be a hair stylist. The exam required me to bring a live model on which to demonstrate hair techniques, so my good friend Anne rode all the way up state with me. (That’s another story in itself,) She served as my hair model then flew back to Tampa while I continued with the drive to Dallas.

I arrived in Texas with most of my possessions in the back of my Datsun B-210 hatchback: my bedside lamp, clock radio, bed sheets, pots, pans and sundry items remaining in my now defunct household. I had bid goodbye to dear friends in Florida and had completed the long journey taking a few side trips along the way; another adventure to be told another time.

Thus began my six-week intensive training course where we were housed in an old English style hotel, providing us with three hot meals and snacks daily. Held semi-captive in our dormitories, we were bussed each morning to the training facility where we studied emergency rescue and medical procedures, memorized airplane configurations for the fleet of jets used by the airline, practiced extinguishing a fire, jumped out of airplanes onto the scorching hot canvas slide, opened the front hatch of a Boeing 747 and looked down five flights to the ground.

We learned how to properly open and serve fine wine and make every kind of cocktail; how to serve a seven course meal on china (offered in First Class); how to make real cappuccino; how to operate an airplane oven, how to operate a public address system and make formal announcements; and many more useful things over the course of study. We learned how to smile when our feet and backs were aching after serving on duty for fourteen hours; how to manage passenger expectations during a mechanical delay.

Those of us who were hired during the upward surge of the airline’s popularity remained too junior to bid any good work routes. With 25-30 graduates per week often the best schedules were bid and won by Flight Attendants who might be only a week senior to us. Many like me learned how to live on a meager salary as a new hire with no seniority, while sitting around on 24 hour call, ready at a moment’s notice to go on a flight to who knows where.

It was an incredibly exciting time of my life. At twenty seven, I was the second oldest in my class and probably loved flying more than any of the “kids”. For me, the adventure had just begun.

I'll always be grateful to the sweet patron I met in Beauty School, through whom I would find the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Those were the days, my friends; we thought they’d never end. Those were the days oh yes, those were the days”.