My Former Life as a Flight Attendant - Braniff International

Sometimes one phone can turn your life completely around.

For months, I'd been working the late shift as receptionist in a hair salon and attending school in the  morning. My cosmetology training was nearly complete when I decided to take a short vacation. I had a job lined up as a hairstylist once I graduated beauty school and passed the State Bar Exam. 

One of my regular beauty school customers found out I was headed to Texas for a few days. She asked me to call her daughter while I was there. Long-distance calls used to be expensive while local calls were free. She gave me her daughter's business card with the phone number. Little did I know that phone call would change my life.

Once I settled in with the family in Texas, I gave the daughter a call. She was happy to hear news about her mother in Florida. We had a nice conversation. She was an executive in Flight Attendant services for a major airline. I mentioned that I'd always wanted to work as a flight attendant.

"Well, we're currently recruiting flight attendants." My heart skipped a beat. "But I'm not allowed to interview you."

"I understand," I told her somewhat disappointed.

"I'll ask someone to give you a call, but I can't promise anything."

I figured that was the end of it when the phone rang at my mom's house.

"This is Flight Attendant staffing," the caller announced. "Are you available for an interview tomorrow?"

Of course, I said yes. My mom and I immediately went shopping for an appropriate outfit to wear. All I had with me were vacation clothes. We had a great day shopping in downtown Fort Worth where she grew up.

The next day, I borrowed their car and headed to the airport. I weaved my way through a twisting maze at the huge airport, located the right building and found a good parking spot. Walking across the asphalt in the summer Texas heat, I could feel my hair and makeup withering.

The Interview

She asked about my work history and the reasons I wanted to be a flight attendant. I'd been a hostess and stand-in bartender at a couple of expensive restaurants and shared that experience. I'd also worked at banks and my cosmetology training was almost finished.

She also asked questions to evaluate my personality and suitability for the job like, "What would make you make a better flight attendant than someone else?"

 Despite my nervousness, I thought the interview went okay.

Once I got home, the phone rang again.

"Would you be available tomorrow for a group interview.?" There would be a panel of pilots, senior flight attendants, and training instructors that would interview several applicants at the same time. If we made it to the finals, we'd have individual interviews after the group session. Yes!

There was an advantage to not being the first to answer a question. We learned from the reactions of the panel what they didn't want to hear like, "I want to be a flight attendant because I just love people." They were sick of hearing that.

The challenge was to come up with something original after several others already answered the same question. When the group session finished, I was chosen for an individual interview.

Afterward, I resumed my vacation. That's when the phone rang again.

This call changed all my plans going forward. The friendly voice on the phone said I'd been selected to attend Flight Attendant Training starting in one month. A couple of days later, I flew home to Florida. I could hardly believe this happened, until the official offer letter arrived with the date to report for training. I was still in denial.

Over the next few weeks, I finished beauty school, quit my job at the salon, sold most of my belongings, and packed my car for the trip to Texas. Driving through Florida, my roommate and I stopped in Pensacola to take my State Board Exam for my cosmetology license. She'd come with me to be my hair model for the practical exam and flew back to Tampa after that was over. I continued the twelve-hundred-mile drive to Dallas alone.

I'd wanted to become a flight attendant for years. At twenty-one, I applied with Eastern Airlines. They didn't hire married applicants and I got a letter of rejection.

Once I became single again I applied again. This time, they sent a round-trip ticket to Miami for an interview. It took a couple of weeks before another rejection letter came in the mail.

At twenty-five, I applied with Northwest Orient Airlines and went for an interview in Minneapolis, Minnesota in winter time. There were only thirty positions available and they had 800 applicants. We were rushed through the process and told they would let us know the results. A few weeks later, another rejection letter came.

Training in Dallas at the Royal Coach

During the five-week training course, we lived in The Royal Dunfey's Hotel in Dallas. After breakfast, we were bused to the training facility on Lemon Avenue for classroom training and to practice emergency drills and CPR. 

We jumped out of second-story windows onto scorching hot evacuation slides, learned to use fire extinguishers on real fires and fumbled our way through dark airplanes to locate safety equipment. We trained to open exit window hatches. One test required us to open the door of a 747 which was five stories above the ground.

"Again!" the emergency procedures instructor would yell as we practiced pulling the emergency hatch off the mock-up airplane.

"Now toss that hatch on the seat and move those passengers along."

We spent hours practicing airline announcements, reading them from our manuals as required by the FAA. We worked in galley mock-ups learning how to use convection ovens and coffee makers. We served seven-course dinners on real dishes with glassware. We trained for a week on bartending skills learning cocktails and how to serve wine and make Cappuccino.

At night we studied our training manuals and memorized configurations for the fleet of Braniff jets. We formed groups and quizzed each other on airport codes and their abbreviations. We practiced and role-played for hours, but it was nothing like serving onboard a flight with real passengers.

After Graduation

Our travel assignments were based on seniority, the length of time we had with the airline, or within our class, our date of birth. Each month we bid on different flight schedules and those with fifteen years plus with the company got the better schedules like five trips to Hawaii during the month. I longed for that kind of route.

Newbies like us had little seniority and usually flew reserve. That meant nine days off during the month with the rest of the time being on twenty-four-hour call. At a moments notice, scheduling could assign us a trip with a one-hour notice. Usually, we filled in for absent employees or those delayed elsewhere by mechanical difficulties on a previous flight. We had to keep a packed suitcase ready, like an expectant mother.

Despite the unusual hours, the waiting by the phone, the meal service on back-to-back commuter flights, and the rigors of standing for up to fourteen hours at a time, the job was a lot of fun.

I'll always remember those days as some of the best of my life.

Coming of Age in the 1960s

Key West was the ideal place to grow up in the 60s. It's a small island at the southernmost tip of Florida where the temperature averages 65 to 89 degrees year round.

Saturday mornings started around 5 am for us kids. We'd load the cooler with sodas and food while Dad would hitch our 14 foot boat to the station wagon. Then we'd make the drive to our favorite launch ramp at Sugarloaf or Big Pine Key, sometimes Tavernier.

Photo: Diego Pitt via Unsplash

He'd back the boat down the ramp while we watched the car inch close to the point of no return. Once the boat was afloat, my brother would move the car and trailer and we'd head out for a day of fishing. We'd use shrimp and mullet to catch snapper, grouper and grunts. The fish fry was always a feast with fresh fillets of snapper, hush puppies made with cornmeal and coleslaw.

Back then, we walked to school or rode our bikes. On the way home, we'd keep an eye out for empty soda bottles tossed on the side of the road. Recovered ones jostled in our wire bicycle baskets, clinking out a merry tune as we rode home.

After our homework was done, we'd head outside to scrub the bottles clean using the garden hose and ride to the corner store to cash them in for two cents each. A little work paid for a ten cent comic book or a candy bar. If business was really good, we'd splurge on a Coke from the machine at the back of the store.

I recall our disappointment when they put a canned drink vending machine in front of the store. Our return-bottle business faltered with each purchase. Worse, the aluminum canned drinks were fifteen cents. It was our first encounter with inflation.

Miss Jordan's 4th Grade Elementary School Class

After school on the side street by our house, we played "Four Square" with a plastic bouncing ball. We'd draw four boxes in a larger square on the asphalt and write numbers in each square. Whenever a car came along, we'd holler "CAR!" and move out of the way while they drove through.

At the local A&W, we drank root beer brought to us by car hops on roller skates. They'd hang a tray from the driver's side window and skate around delivering orders wearing metal change-makers on their belts.

There was only one Burger King in the small town, and one Dairy Queen. They served the best soft-serve cones. There was a Royal Castle with their famous Birch Beer in a frosted mug for a nickel.

Families enjoyed dollar-a-carload night at the drive-in movies. Cartoons always played before the main feature. We saw mostly Westerns or a comedy like The Three Stooges.

The Conch Train, took tourists around the city on connected cars behind an engine car with a tour guide announcing all the historical data.

When relatives came to town, our family went to the A & B Lobster House near the docks with the best lobster salad and Key Lime pie in town.

Our school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance with our hands over our hearts. Afterward, we sang, "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Then, the teacher, Mrs. Price, would pick someone to read a short passage from the Bible. Yes, it was a public school and we exercised this religious freedom.

When Cape Canaveral, now Cape Kennedy, had a scheduled launch, our Principal, Mr. Carey, would roll an AV cart into the cafeteria/auditorium for the students to watch it live. Other times, we watched the launch from outside. On a clear day, we could see the trail of the rocket's arc from miles away.

21 Feb 1961 NASA Public Domain

In one of his last appearances in the Florida Keys, President Kennedy, traveling down A1A in his white Lincoln Continental convertible, turned to wave to our group beside the road. Soon after that visit, the announcement came over the school PA that JFK had been shot. Classmates cried and sadness prevailed, before we were dismissed from school early that day.

My Dad drove straight from the Navy Base to pick me up from school. Our family spent the evening in a state of shock watching Chet Huntley and David Brinkley recap the bad news.

We drove to Perrine to be with relatives for Thanksgiving and watched the funeral on their TV.

In 1964, Dad retired from the Navy and our family moved to South Miami and bought a house on Franjo Road. The model home, a 3 bedrooms was featured as a close-out for the subdivision with a sale price of $17,300.00. There was a swimming pool with a cabana and a separate bathroom which my brother, a Junior in High School, moved into. We lived in that house for 5 years.

My first car in high school was a 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible. At lunch time, we'd pile in as many kids that would fit in the car, put the convertible top down and with the radio blaring, we'd cruise to 7-Eleven. An order of French fries cost a quarter and were made to order. Or we'd head to Arby's for hand-sliced roast beef cut on their slicing machine at the counter and a Jamocha shake. chocolate ice cream, milk and a dash of coffee. At Burger King, we'd order a whopper with no onions, just in case of a close encounter.

Senior year, the mixed concert chorus  took a train trip to Washington, D.C. from Miami, Florida along with the high school band and parents serving as chaperones. It was a twenty-five-hour ride jostling along in standard cars with no sleeping berths. Not that we did much sleeping on the trip.

We performed the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the Rotunda with its magnificent acoustics and our young A Capella voices. Later, we took a tour bus to the National Archives and saw original documents like the Declaration of Independence.

In Arlington, Virginia we competed in the Cherry Blossom Festival of Performing Concert Choirs. Afterward, we headed home on a much-subdued train ride home.

For our final performance of the year, the Mixed Concert Chorus performed Lerner and Lowe's 1954 musical "Brigadoon" for which we rehearsed endlessly. Tickets were sold to raise money to buy a new recording system for our music room.

That last year of the nineteen sixties, graduation day sneaked upon us far too soon, setting off major changes in our lives and the way things had always been. It was the end of an era and the commencement of a new one: the seventies.

A Land Remembered - Book Review

A Land Remembered is a fictional story that captures the true spirit of Florida's early settlers. 

Award-winning author, Patrick D. Smith brings to life  a story of dirt-poor Florida farmers in early pioneer days. Theirs is a tale of determination, hard work, and sacrifice, fraught with peril and danger.

Modern-day Florida is filled with luxury hotels, beach-front resorts, tourists, orange groves, and a collection of residents that usually come from other places. Few realize the raw nature of its existence before the railroad brought commerce to the area.

Rampant with alligators, snakes, marshy swamps, and mosquitoes, this land, in its original state, was home to the Seminole Indians. With razor-sharp saw-grass, devastating hurricanes, and treacherous flooding coupled with sudden crop-killing freezes, early settlers had a full-time job trying to stay alive.

During his research for this novel, Patrick D. Smith ran a trading post to learn about the lives of the native people of Florida. He describes the evolution of the state from its roots as a swamp and prairie to its explosive growth in population and major industry in a fictional story that captures the true spirit of early settlers.

Image from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain]

Most people have little idea of what it was like scratching out an existence living on roots, berries and raccoon stew. In his novel, A Land Remembered, Smith gives the reader plenty to think about.

Hardships after the Civil War included a serious shortage of even the most basic supplies. Groceries like flour, sugar, fabric for clothing, shoes, ammunition for hunting and cookware needed to prepare meals were hard to come by.

He tells of the "Cow Cavalry," a group commissioned by the state's governor to round up stray cattle. Their job was to drive the cows to Georgia to feed the remaining Federal troops. Along the way, they also collected and conscripted male settlers to run the cattle, whether willing or not, to travel through the harsh land with its collection of predators and diseases like malaria and dysentery. Federal troops were known to raid villages, taking "everything they could get their hands on" leaving settlers without their horses, mules and cows with no recourse. Buzzards would collect those who objected.

Confederate deserters, hiding out in the swamps to evade arrest, preyed on the families of isolated settlers, killing and devouring even their work animals.

Native Seminole Indians, that were also hunted and pursued, moved deeper into the swamps of the Everglades to avoid those who wished them harm.

Schooners traveled down the rivers carrying supplies for the local trading posts where settlers would bring animal furs to trade for their basic needs. There, they could occasionally get items they couldn't make or grow like coffee and flour.

Legal tender following the war was limited to Spanish gold doubloons carted around in wagons pulled by oxen. With the peril of extreme storms like hurricanes came the ever-present swamp creatures hungry and waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting.

As early cowhands pushed their herds towards the nearest marketplace, they crossed treacherous prairies and uncleared land filled with quick sand and hordes of mosquitoes. Often those dangers were enhanced by cutthroat cattle rustlers ready to kill for a profit and personal gain.

The story opens with a narrative by the elder Sol MacIvey who is at the end of his life. He has decided to defy his doctor's orders and return to his old home on the prairie of Southern Florida.

His earliest memories come flooding back as he reconnects with his Native American friend, Toby Cypress, who formed a lifetime bond with Sol's father through mutual need and respect. Sol's ancestors struggle to grow crops on their homestead while trying to keep their work oxen safe from deadly creatures that lurk in nearby woods.

They flourished despite the odds by capturing, branding and driving herds of cattle across the state to market.

A Seminole family of Cypress Tiger at their camp near Kendall, Florida in 1916. Photographer: Botanist John Kunkel Small, 1869-1938 - Image Public Domain

The text weaves its way past a series of events through three generations of MacIvey's trying to establish a homestead. The author introduces their hired hand, Frog, whose dedication and respect for the family convinces him to stick around for a lifetime. Others join the small establishment in the scrubs to become an integral part of the family and its endeavors.

A mixture of "Bonanza" with its Ponderosa, and an impoverished post-Civil War “Gone With the Wind” existence, this tale keeps the reader engaged as they grow to care for and understand the characters portrayed.

The story provides insight into the erosion of the hard work ethic that prompted patriarch Tobias MacIvey to leave his roots and seek out a new existence in the developing south as life becomes easier with the passage of time.

Coming out of Georgia in 1858 with a horse-drawn wagon, his wife and their small baby crossed into Florida with "a sack of corn and a sack of sweet potatoes," and the tools to clear the land and build a house.

His forty-acre farm in Georgia's red clay soil had failed. Seeking more nourishing soil and a new start, he sold the land in exchange for the goods to stock the wagon - "a few packets of seeds, a shotgun and a few shells, a frying pan and a cast-iron pot" which would have to serve the family for years to come.

He traded the wagon horses for a pair of oxen they named Tuck and Buck. As part of the trade, they got a guinea cow, a strangely diminutive animal which would provide milk for all of them.

Photo Attribution - University of Washington, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Their journey through the wilderness, finding and establishing their first isolated homestead, losing it to disaster, then moving farther south to again, seek out richer soil leads them into a whole new world of experiences and eventual enrichment as their family grows and adds members.

With each generation, existence grows easier with successful crops, acres of producing orange groves and ready-made housing for the offspring that come along. When they found a way to earn bushels of money, they finally had it made.

This story has all the appeal of a grandfather's tale, mixing pioneer adventure with a slice of history told by a seasoned storyteller.

This is a saga that will stay in your mind as a keen reminder of what the frontier held for our ancestors. It tells of hard work, sacrifice and reward that comes, but not without its share of loss and grief.

Patrick D. Smith Talks About the Book in this YouTube video

Crustless Butternut Squash Pie Recipe

Even if you've never baked a pie in your life this recipe is a great place to start. You can put this pie together in just a few minutes and have it baking in the oven. The best part is that no crust is needed.

You will need a nine-inch deep pie dish, measuring spoons and a few basic ingredients from the pantry to get started.

We just call it Squash Pie.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of canned, frozen, or fresh-cooked butternut squash
• 1 can of evaporated milk (13 oz.)
• 4 fresh eggs
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 stick of butter or margarine
• 1 Tablespoon of flour
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg
• a dash of salt
• 1 Tablespoon of vegetable shortening to grease the pie pan

How to make fresh butternut squash.

https://vespertinewriter.blogspot.com/2025/08/how-to-bake-butternut-squash.html

Or, canned squash works for this recipe, too. One 15 ounce can is enough.

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (f)
2. Grease a 9-inch pie dish with a thin coating of vegetable shortening or non-stick spray.
3. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cut the butter into small pieces and let it soften to room temperature.
4. Mix the sugar and softened butter together until it's creamy.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each egg
6. Mix a tablespoon of flour with the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and blend these into the egg mixture.
7. Stir in the cooked squash using either canned, frozen (left in the refrigerator overnight to thaw) or 2 cups of cooled, baked squash.
8. Add the vanilla extract.
9. Slowly stir in the evaporated milk. The mixture will be watery with loose, floating bits of butter after it is poured into the baking dish.
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

If you have an electric mixer, it saves time but the pie will come out fine if you use a whisk or a hand beater to mix the ingredients.

Frozen squash works fine as well. Allow the squash to defrost in the box for 24 hours in your refrigerator before adding it to the recipe.

Carefully remove the pie from the oven and cool on a wire rack before serving. The pie starts out looking rather puffy, but as it cools, it settles down to look more like pumpkin pie.

Cut the cooled pie into eight (8) slices and add a dash of whipped cream or Cool Whip topping before serving.

The pie may be served either warm or cold.

Store any leftover pie in the refrigerator and use it within seven days.

Once you've made this easy no-crust pie recipe, you'll want to make it again and again. That spicy aroma of the pie while it bakes will bring family members into the kitchen to see what's cooking.

Come try this nutritious dessert that your kids will love. They won't even know it is a vegetable unless you tell them.

Topped with whipped cream it's delicious. It tastes like spicy custard.

My six-year-old asked me the same question during dinner until it became a ritual.

"Will you be passing out dessert tonight, Mommy?" My answer was always the same.

"Only if you eat your vegetables." He would laugh and shovel in whatever was left on his dinner plate. He loved this nutritious pie and always asked for seconds.

How To Bake Butternut Squash

When harvest brings in the butternut squash, it's time to fire up the oven and bake this delicious vegetable to use in pies or served as a simple, nutritious side dish.  

When the weather cools down and fall is in the air, butternut squash makes an appearance in the produce departments of Texas, the southern states, and other markets like Australia and New Zealand where it's known as butternut pumpkin.

This pumpkin-like fruit was first developed in Stow, Massachusetts, and it's wonderful when used in baking breads and pies or even as a side dish. It's a member of the Cucurbita moschata family.

My family likes butternut squash in a no-crust pie recipe that I've adapted that uses canned, frozen, or fresh-baked butternut squash. Having baked this pie for many years, I never tried it using fresh squash until recently. The difference in texture and taste is amazing.

After years of using the frozen kind of winter squash, I finally embraced my fears of strange and unusual vegetables, picked out a firm, uniform specimen at the produce department, and took it home. Then I began to search for instructions on how to prepare it. Should I peel it? Cube it? What about the seeds?

Inside an old Mirro Ware Cookbook from 1954, I found a recipe for acorn squash, which I adapted and it came out delicious. I was pleased at how easy it was to prepare even on my first attempt.

Here's the Easy Way to Prepare the Squash

1) Line a baking pan (13x9 inches) with aluminum foil. It makes cleanup easier.

2) Preheat the oven to 350°F.

3) Wash the squash to remove any debris. Use a cutting board and a sharp knife to carefully cut the stem off the squash.

4) Firmly grasp the squash and cut it in half lengthwise, starting at the bulbous end using a serrated knife. Use care. It's hard to make both sides exactly even as the vegetable is very tough when raw.

5) Just like a cantaloupe or melon, scoop out the seeds using a spoon and set them aside. These can be washed and saved for planting or baked and eaten.

6) Drop the seeds into a small bowl with a little water and the membrane will wash off and drop to the bowl bottom and the seeds will float. Spread them out to dry on a paper towel.

Spray the bottom of the pan with Pam or lightly grease with vegetable shortening.

• 2 Tablespoons of butter (melted in the microwave for 10 seconds

• Brush the cut surfaces of the squash with the butter

Mix the spices together and sprinkle onto the cut side of the squash.

• 1 Tablespoon of granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Put the brown sugar into the cup of the cut squash.

• 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar (optional)

Add one cup of water to the pan.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil

Make small cuts in the top for the steam to escape.

Bake at 350 degrees (f) for 45 minutes to an hour, until a fork can easily be inserted into the squash.

Once tender, use a spoon to scoop out each shell and transfer the squash into a serving dish or covered container and refrigerate the cooked squash until needed.

Fresh-cooked squash improves the texture of my butternut squash pie and adds to its holding power in the refrigerator.

Here's a recipe for crustless butternut squash pie. 

https://vespertinewriter.blogspot.com/2025/08/crustless-butternut-squash-pie-recipe.html

It's delicious topped with whipped cream or Cool Whip. Even Kids will love it.

Memories from the Fifties

This is me when we lived in Goldsborough Housing in Bayonne New Jersey. Yes, we three kids walked to and from school in the snow, uphill, both ways.

This was our brand new 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88, black with lipstick red interior. My dad was big on buying new cars even though we lived in the projects. Before we left town, he traded it in on a 1959 Rambler Station Wagon, a more practical choice for a family of five.

Most of our neighbors were Navy personnel and their dependents. Dad was stationed at the Brooklyn Naval Yard on the USS Allegheny ATA 179. We often took Sunday dinner aboard the ship served to us in the Captain's quarters. Dad was the XO or Chief Executive Officer aboard the Auxiliary Fleet Tug. I remember he would sometimes bring home a member of the crew to join us for Sunday dinner when we ate at home. Other times, we'd visit the Museum of Natural History and spend hours learning. It was free admission, which was a plus.

We went to church on Manhattan Island where Pat Boone was the song director and his wife was my brother and sister's Sunday School teacher.

Even though I was only 6, 7 and 8 years old when we lived there, I hold these memories close to my heart.

Like when we started at a new school after living in four states during my first year. They tried to set us all back a year because we came in from schools in the south, like Key West, Florida, Valdosta, GA, and Charleston, South Carolina. 

Dad donned his Naval Officer's Dress Whites and made a trip to the Principal's office to protest. They relented and put us on probation until we could prove that we could keep up with the work. My first grade teacher there was the sister of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Cassell. She was the absolute best. I wish I could go back and thank her for her kindness and acceptance of me.

There was a little candy store right across from Horace Mann Elementary where we spent our allowance on Red Hots, licorice or salted pumpkin seeds. They also had a good selection of orange wax lips and vampire teeth. My mother sometimes came and took me to lunch at a nearby diner where we ate hamburgers. There was no cafeteria at the school so mostly, we carried our lunch in our tin lunchboxes with a Thermos of milk.

My dog Trixie used to know what time we were expected home from school. When it was time, she would sit on the window ledge and watch for us to walk up the sidewalk.

The project bully lived in the apartment above us. There was a snowball throwing incident with Bruce at the intersection where the school grounds began. We retaliated by lobbing some snowballs back at him. All of us were taken to the Principal's office where we were given detention.

Dad was furious that we didn't show up at home at the expected time. He later told us he was proud that we defended ourselves. We were released from custody under his supervision.

There were lots of good times there: Trick or Treating in the housing complex; having a snow day when a six foot snow drift blocked our building; practicing air raid drills walking two-by-two to a shelter in the school basement. Ah, good times.

And when Dad got new orders, we packed up our station wagon and waved goodbye to our belongings in the moving van, and drove the 1426 miles back to Key West for another tour of duty.

We lived in Navy housing there, too, a place called Sigsbee Park. And when we started school at Sigsbee Elementary, we were already ahead of the game having learned cursive writing, the times tables, and how to memorize passages like Psalm 100.

Then, we moved again, locally this time, into a two-story house on Flagler Avenue which became our family's ongoing project as a fixer upper. For 18 months, Dad was stationed in the Mediterranean and we didn't see him during that time. When he returned, we remodeled the upstairs bathroom, repainted the living room (Mom had us paint it Flamingo Pink during his absence), and built a 6 foot cement block wall around the back yard.

From our frequent moves, we learned how to adapt to change, how to make new friends and how to say goodbye to people we vowed to stay in contact with. Time passed and those connections drifted away like sand on a beach but their memories linger on.

The September Song - These Precious Days

It seems as if 1983 was just the other day. But it's been 42 years. That seems impossible.

In 1983, I was living on a 300-acre horse ranch, working during the day as secretary to the President of three companies.

My small cottage was located nearest the main road on the long and winding gravel driveway. Delivery people stopped to inquire if my boss, at the big house, was in and accepting visitors. The hand-me-down furniture in the cottage was huge, having come from the house on the hill after they remodeled. The king-size bed took up nearly all the floor space in the tiny bedroom. But the little house was comfortable and just the right size for me.

There were horses in the pasture behind the cottage and I witnessed the early morning birth of a foal, my first such experience. The horses would come right up to the fence hoping for a handful of the greener grass from my side or a fresh carrot with green leaves.

It was quiet, eerily silent at night with only the sound of owls and crickets singing in the dark. Away from the city, the stars seemed brighter, the sky clearer, the air fresher.

We had an office in town. From the third-floor window I could watch the busy traffic on LBJ Freeway aka 635. I'd show up at eight before the family employees who came in around ten. That gave me a couple of hours of peace and quiet in the elegant surroundings.

I sometimes miss driving into town at the rush-hour and finding a good parking place under a shade tree on those blistering Texas summer days.

After I left that job, they relocated the business to a busier, even taller building right off the High 5 intersection on Central Expressway, a nightmare to navigate. The building has changed hands many times since then, each proclaiming their corporate names high at the top of the black glass structure.

So much water under the bridge since those days. There've been many career changes. A college degree finally completed. Holding a corporate management role in a multi-billion dollar global company. Now, retirement. Ah, sweet retirement.

The memories of the past have had time to soften and mellow and the bad times seem less harsh with time. I'm content, now, to live my slower-paced, homebody life at home with my wonderful husband and precious dogs.

The September Song - Ella Fitzgerald

I don't miss those days as much as I miss the energy and productivity that goes with being young. With each passing birthday, I see less time ahead than behind. And I'm grateful for the things I experienced along the way to getting old.

The Pub: A Murd*r Mystery © by Peggy Cole Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The manager of a fancy restaurant suddenly disappears. When paychecks start bouncing, the new bookkeeper falls under suspicion. Her new manager creates havoc in an already unstable workplace as Joe battles to save her job.

Joe watched dawn break over the channel. On the dock, a fisherman readied his boat for the day's work. She longed to spend the day on the water with the wind in her hair. It had been weeks since her boss, The Pub's owner, took her out on his boat. She wondered how things could have turned around so quickly.

There were only two cars in the parking lot. "Leftovers," she mumbled. These belonged to customers who'd found a ride home with someone they met at the lounge. She'd learned the hard way not to leave her car there overnight.

Once in the door, she was engulfed in an odor of stale beer and cigarette smoke. She followed the stains on the carpet to the service kiosk and made a pot of coffee. In the kitchen, she caught an image of herself in the door of the walk-in cooler. Sunken eyes, messy hair, wrinkled outfit, she looked far different than she had a few months ago.

"Home sweet home," she said and tossed her purse into a drawer. It was the late seventies. There were no computers to calculate balances. She'd learned to use an old Pegboard System with carbon copies of checks for records. She studied the entries on the bank register until her eyes blurred and her thoughts drifted.

Why did I take this job in the first place?

It had been fun at first. She loved counting stacks of cash and balancing the registers. Another benefit was the free daily meal. Eating at a fancy restaurant wasn't something she could do on her salary from the bank.

Her new boss, Dick, one of the owners liked to say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."  He'd said it again yesterday.

"Yeah, I know." She rolled her eyes.

Another thing, he often said. "Always have a Plan B." Right now she was wishing for a "Plan B."

The job had become nothing but trouble. Paychecks were bouncing and she was being blamed.

When she'd first started the job, she and Dick would drive up the coast to check out the competition. At least, that was what he said. He wrote it off as a business expense. The truth was, he liked to be seen with pretty women who would drive him home while he nodded off in a stupor.

Joe knew that other girls on staff shared the same favors. Joe didn't mind. It was her best chance to drive a fast, fancy sports car.

He'd tell her to let him out a couple of blocks away from his house.

"The night is perfect for a walk," he'd say. But Joe knew the real reason. He wanted to stay out of site of the condo he shared with his wife and his mother-in-law.

"Just take the car home with you," he'd say. "You can drive it to work in the morning." She only fell for that one time. Repercussion came the next morning at work.

"Looks like somebody got lucky last night," the early-shift bartender cooed when she walked in. "Saw your car in the lot." He snickered.

"What?" she sputtered. "No! I drove Dick's car to my house." Words spilled out before she could stop them. Shut up. You're making it worse. She turned her back and drew a soda from the fountain trying to hide her bright red face.

"Guess that makes you someone's pet then, doesn't it?"

Joe had spent the morning sulking in her office, thinking about her old job at the bank.

Working at the brand new bank hadn't been all that bad. It was furnished with huge oak desks, marble counters and decorative lighting. Sadly, the fancy furnishings didn't spill over into the employees' salaries. Despite that, there was a waiting list to work there. Eight-to-five jobs were hard to find in the small town.

The day she realized she was going nowhere there was the day they promoted the security guard to head teller. He had no teller experience. He was just a man and the owner liked to favor men employees. She griped about it like the others but she was the only one that looked for a way out.

Scouring the want ads on her break she read, One weekend off a month? Hours 5 pm until midnight? They've got to be kidding. Most of the ads were for hotels, bars or restaurants. In the tourist driven town, hospitality workers seemed to drift in and out like the tide. Joe wasn't like that. She wanted a job with stability.

She thought she'd found that at The Pub.

Snapping back to reality, she ran the numbers again trying to explain the overdraft. She needed to prove herself; remove any doubt about her bookkeeping abilities.

Trying to raise some funds, she started making calls to customers with past-due house accounts. Not something she liked doing. She wondered why the management let people run up tabs into the thousands of dollars. Even Dick's tab was overdue. She put his file aside and moved to the next one. Maybe she could bring in enough to cover the payroll this week and hopefully, next week's liquor order.

She searched the office again trying to find the old bank statements. They weren't there despite her constant reminders to Bob, the general manager.

"I need those," she'd told him two days earlier. He'd blown her off. She pushed harder. "What if Ervin shows up? The last time he was here that's the first thing he wanted to see." Bringing up the CPA from hell turned Bob's face into a dark angry mask.

"If he shows up, tell him to ask me," he shouted, spit flying. Tomato juice and vodka sloshed out of his glass as he teetered under the low ceiling.

"Like I said, I balanced them myself while you were wasting time on some other worthless crap."

That was a new one, even for the master of insults.

"You don't need them to do your job," he screamed, storming out of the office. Through the closed door he yelled, "I need that staff schedule I told you to get done. Work on something useful for a change."

That was the last time she'd seen Bob.

She wondered if Bob's infatuation with Doreen had anything to do with the state of the books. Flings among the staff were common as hangovers and as quickly forgotten. This one was different. Bob fell hard for Doreen and she took advantage of it. The waitstaff grumbled that she got the choice shifts and better table assignments, although, no one dared mention it to him. That subject was strictly off limits.

Lately, Joe sensed trouble between Bob and Doreen. That would explain his foul mood over the past few weeks when he’d show up barking orders and scowling more than usual.

Two hours flew by as she poured over the books. She ran the numbers again and came up with the same balance. She heard the clatter of pans and dishes in the kitchen just beyond her door. Staff was showing up for work. Her eyes were bleary when the office door opened and Dick stood in the doorway. She could tell from his expression that something was up. He never came in this early.

“Bob’s gone,” he said eyeing the tangle of adding machine tapes snaking across the desk. Joe took the pencil stub she was chewing out of her mouth. It left a black smear on her lip.

“What do you mean gone?” 

“He’s disappeared.” He formed his hands like a bird in flight.

“How do you figure?” She smirked, thinking he was trying out one of his corny accounting jokes. She waited for the punch line, but his expression remained grim. He stepped inside and lowered his bulk to the bench across from her.

“I drove by Bob's place on my way to breakfast. He always parks in the same spot but his car’s not there. When he didn’t answer the door, I peeked in. The place looked empty. Nothing but furniture. You know his place looks like a train wreck - clothes draped over chairs, dirty dishes everywhere, even during staff meetings.”

Once a month, the employees met at Bob’s for a breakfast meeting. It was usually on a Sunday when they didn't serve lunch. Then everyone went for an outing on Dick’s boat.

“The room looks like it did before he moved in," he went on, "and the car not in its usual spot. Looks like he split."

Bob rarely drove his own car to the restaurant. That gave him an excuse to drive Dick’s fancy car to the bank for the daily deposit. He liked to brag that walking kept him in peak shape. Joe had to admit, for a man in his fifties, he was lean and muscular not paunchy like some. She looked at Dick's bulging belly.

“Maybe he’s with Doreen,” Joe said, instantly regretting it. Everyone knew about Bob’s obsession with Doreen. Maybe not everyone. She doubted that Dick knew. He was oblivious to most of the drama at The Pub.

His eyes lingered on her pencil-stained lips. She knew his affection for her ran deeper than he cared to admit. But she could tell. She always could tell that about men. For as long as she could remember. The way he stared at her with a dreamily when he thought she wasn’t looking. It was nothing new. She turned heads. Over the years, she’d become used to getting double takes from strangers. Beauty was a mixed blessing with its own set of hazards.

They sat quietly in the wake of news about Bob. Joe knew she’d get a new boss. Even worse, Ervin, the other partner, would be flying in to scrutinize the books and Joe in particular. His knack for making people miserable was clear during his last visit.

Beyond his tactless interrogation of the staff, he tended to stare at Joe with such intensity that it made her queasy. She never knew which of his cold, black eyes to look at.

"In a thriving restaurant with packed lounges, how is it impossible we're losing money?" he screamed at Dick. "This is a black hole where my money disappears!”

Ervin had the financial means to keep the Pub open. That gave him a sizeable amount of power. But with the current state of the books, she wasn’t sure if either partner would put more money into the restaurant. If not, The Pub would fold and put everyone's job on the line.

Dick broke the silence.

“I’ve asked Chip to take on the management duties until we can hire someone.”

“Oh?” She was unable to hide her disappointment. The assistant manager wouldn’t be her first choice when it came to replacing Bob. Although he acted friendly, something dark lurked beneath the surface of the muscle-bound bouncer. She knew if Dick already talked to Chip, the rest of the staff probably knew about Bob, too. Getting the news second-hand stung worse than Chip as Bob’s replacement.

Dick reached across the table and patted her shoulder, then, shuffled out. The gloom of the space closed in around her. Muffled voices filtered in through the thin walls. She could hear Dick telling the day cook to spread the word about a staff meeting before lunch. Reactions varied. One loud voice said, “That’s just great,” then, the grumbling went quiet.

“Staff meeting at eleven,” Denny announced in the dining room where two waitresses folded cloth napkins. They stopped and glared as he moved down the hall. Doreen slammed silverware onto a linen triangle and rolled up the edges. Her companion glanced at her across the table.

“They probably just came up with some more rules,” she said, “as if we need any more.” Doreen nodded and they resumed their task.

Denny’s voice carried as he moved into the lounge. He told servers with their pitchers of iced tea and condiments about the meeting.

At precisely eleven, a restless crowd shuffled around in the breakroom. Typical of a small town, rumors spread at the speed of sound in the restaurant. By the time Dick came in, many already knew what was coming. The room drew silent as they waited for him to make the official announcement.

“Bob is no longer with us,” he began. For a few of the late comers, the news took them by surprise. Doreen’s reaction was the most surprising.

“Why that scoundrel!” she said loud enough for anyone nearby to overhear. Heads swiveled toward the back of the room and there was muffled laughter. She stood a few feet away from Chewy who glanced at her with compassion mixed with a glimmer of hope. Months earlier, he’d tried to win her heart with boxed chocolates and bouquets of flowers he’d sent to her home address. With the stage set, he’d finally dredged up the courage to ask her out.

“How about a movie?” he’d asked.

“You and me?” Her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline.

“Sure,” he told her. “Death Wish is on at the drive in. It’s got Charles Bronson.”

“Not in this lifetime,” she’d answered with disdain walking away her nose in the air. Her rejections weren’t just for Chewy. Her cold indifference applied to every male who’d shown interest. That was, until Bob came along with his distinguished good looks and trim physique.

“Looks like the Ice Queen has finally melted,” one of the bus boys had said when news about the manager and the waitress spread.

While Dick droned on about Chip being in charge for the moment and his plans to advertise for a new manager, Chewy used the time to focus on Doreen.

Bob may have won her over for a while, but now, she’ll warm up to me. With Bob out of the picture, I have a better chance. He decided to make her jealous using Joe as bait. Chewy smiled at the thought. Jealousy will tip the scales in my favor.

Doreen seethed in a quiet rage. She knew more about Bob’s absence than anyone. He’s no different from the rest, she brooded, a scowl pasted on her face. He used me! The words screamed in her head blocking out Dick's voice. All she could think about was her new plan of action.

She frowned thinking about Bob's betrayal. While the others listened to Dick's ramblings, she worked on the details of her revenge.

They’ll be sorry they messed with me. They’ll all be sorry.

By that point, her anger overflowed one single target. It grew to include her coworkers. Suddenly her scowl changed to a smile.

“That’ll do it for now,” Dick said drawing the meeting to a close. Any questions or opinions about missing managers and missing cash went unanswered while they got ready for the waiting lunch crowd.

But those who'd survived other recent management changes knew uncertainty was headed their way.

Available on Amazon The Pub: A Murder Mystery

© Peggy Cole 2012

All rights are reserved. No part of this story may be copied or transmitted in any form without written permission from the author.

This story is fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and locations are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons, events or locales is coincidental.