TACA

TACA

Pan Am had two types of “stand-by” for stewardesses—24-hour, which meant you had to be ready to fly at a moment’s notice, and TACA, which meant you had to be available by phone to accept a flight for the next day. The month I was TACA, I got out a felt pen and started...

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FED UP

FED UP

I soon realized that, despite the excitement of waking up in a fancy hotel halfway around the world every week, I wasn’t cut out to be a stewardess. Each month you had to bid on a schedule of flights for the following month by listing the available ones in your order...

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MORE SNIPPETS

MORE SNIPPETS

“My training flight was from New York to Frankfurt. We left six hours late—the first 747’s were full of glitches—so, of course, when we arrived at 3:00 in the morning, there was no crew bus to take us to our hotel. One of the stews had rescued a diminutive cake that...

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COLLAGE

COLLAGE

A number of years after the fact, I wrote about my experiences as a “stewardess,” as we called ourselves.

“My recollection of the training school in Miami is like a bad collage—snippets of irrelevancy:

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LINNY

LINNY

I spoke too soon. I did do another drawing from life after Thayer—which I came across when I was looking through my old artwork the other day. My freshman year of high school, I babysat three sisters over a period of several months. The eldest was Linny, in the...

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OUTCAST

OUTCAST

This is Thayer, son of Davona and Lou, who bought the duplex on Raymond Ave. where I spent the happiest years of my childhood. I made this rough sketch in the spring before they evicted us. I mention this because it’s the last portrait I would draw from life. From...

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