" The Don Baker story"

The Don Baker Story

For decades, filmmakers, authors, and television networks have tried to capture the legendary "Don Baker Story." Now, that wait is finally over as his incredible journey takes center stage on the Braniff Chronicles.

Step back into the high-flying adventures of the last century with Don, the ultimate "Galley Counselor" for flight attendants, as he shares the wild, untold stories of his early days on the job and at home with his roommate, Chick. This is a backstage pass to an era of aviation like no other—where work and pure fun collided at 30,000 feet.

From the shocking dangers of flight attendants getting knifed to the absurdity of stewardesses hiking trails in high heels, and the sheer terror of deploying in-flight tie-downs just to survive with a co-worker, this collection covers it all.

Tray table up, Carry on Baggage underneath the seat in front of you & Buckle up and join the journey of 2 Wild and Crazy Guys! All fact. No fiction.

Copyright: 24 Hour Entertainment, Inc. 2025-2026

Music Licensed by: Pixabay

Music by: Nerdy Boyz

Song: Dance Energy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

What life would really like at thirty thousand feet. We're taking you behind a curtain to share the secret histories of the crews who defined an era. Travel from the cheek elegance of the sixties to the high flying energy of the eighties. An era of disco icons, world-class service that will never be seen again. Welcome to the brand of Chronicles.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Alright, that sounds sound like Melissa Waltz right there. This call will be recorded.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yes, it does. I think it was a gulf air accident.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

There you go. So um let me count this down. This is in uh 321. Welcome to the Braniff Chronicles, everybody. My name is Chick Cruz. My clock number is 41352. We are visiting with Don Baker today. He's ex-flight attendant for Braniff. I believe also worked with Alaskan Airlines. He uh has been a civilian for some time, and he is joining us today. Welcome to the show, Don. Do you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you brand?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Absolutely, absolutely, Chick. Do you remember your clock number? 7236, and that's as much as I remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Okay, there have been a couple of colours.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

7236.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

There's a four before that, so that's all you're missing is the four.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yes. And uh if I had that metal card, I'd I'd have it, and I'd have it right here in my hip pocket. Sorry. See it in the career lounge, you know, it was magic.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Totally. So let's go back to how did you end up getting hired by Braniff and what were you doing at the time? What brought you out of the Pacific Northwest?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

I was I had graduated from college finally, and uh as a kid, I I always kind of looked up in the sky and we were in the flight pattern uh near Seattle. Right. And I thought, oh man, I I I gotta get up there. That looks kind of cool. So um I fly to a couple airlines, I fly to Alaska here locally, I went through the interview process at AM, and um I threw an application into Braneth. I don't know how the hell I ended up doing that, but I remember flying to DFW. Next thing I knew, I was in one of those training classes, and uh it just happened really fast. So, what was I doing? I was in between stuff, and I was looking for some adventure.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Interesting, huh? So you arrived to the Brandon College, you know, Dunfey's, I forget what the hotel name was, is on the Royal the Royal Coach Inn on Northwest Highway, right down the hill from uh Love Field. And what was that like when you arrived at that Brandon College? Just kind of give me an overview of how the other rookies were, how we were all put there together.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Oh man. Uh so I was a friend of mine, Stacy, who was also ex-Brandef, you know her.

unknown 3:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

She was just over here, and we were having some good laughs about all that. And we uh I remember our training class tickets. We were there, we were like a cohort of four of us, Ann and Michelle, you and me. Uh, but I do remember Sally Vaughn and the big curlers, and you know, the whole deal. Uh, but I remember walking in that the rail coach and the smell kind of was kind of disgusting. But uh and it was it was really dark. And maybe you can help me remember this, but so I wasn't out of the closet in those days. And uh there was this guy, I swear to God, I don't think they were paying him, but he was like uh the gay contingent emissary who would meet and greet every one of us as we came in the door, and he caught my scent. Um, God knows, I don't know. Uh he was the nicest guy. I don't know what ever happened to him, but so I just remember uh it was friggin' overwhelming to walk into the hotel. I I remember settling in and I we had a good time. We had a blast. We had a great time. I I I mean I flashed on these images of us studying, believe it or not. And really for those tests. Hell yes. That's crazy. We were students, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

We were students and we were always high. I remember weekends, I remember on weekends we couldn't wait to get away because right away Where'd we go? Uh we would go, we would go for car rides and go smoke joints. I remember distinctly the girls had a um one-hour grooming class, and for the guys, it was one hour with Bill Barry to go work out on weights. And I remember it was always after lunch. And so you and Bill and I skipped out from lunch. We went into the backwoods behind the Royal Coach uh hotel and we blew a joint there, and we were like so high, and we were like, oh shit, we gotta go see Bill Barry. And he was this big, brawly, looked like an Irishman boxer with his uh wife beater t-shirt. We walked into that weight room and hell out of it. And I remember him saying, Well, Don, you're you're in good physical condition. And you know, you were a downhill skier. I mean, you were solid, right? And then he was looking at Bill and he goes, Well, you know, you're kind of lanky and skinny. Like, what do you do for athletics? And he goes, Well, I'm a motocross uh motorcycle racer. And he goes, Well, you can't get much muscle on that. And Bill's like, Well, actually, you can, you know, because you're you're flying around, you're having to control a bike several hundred pounds, and he didn't really say anything to me. And uh, but I remember that, and there were these uh, so we'd have the weekend excursions, we would go to Ann's parents' house, and we were trying to process the language of Texans because I remember they were super friendly. They always had us over on every weekend that we could hang out with them. Yeah, cool. Come on. They were like, hey, would you guys like a curs? A curs. You know, we were like, like Michelle's like, I'm embarrassed to ask, but what do you you know? And then I remember Ann's mom holding up a cour cours beer can. Oh, coors, and and it was like, oh yeah, yeah, we'd love to have a cours. And they were sweet, yeah. They were they were so nice. Absolutely. They took us under their wing. And so um the other thing I remember about being at the college was that everybody had a suit and tie. There would be that morning smorgesborg of pancakes and waffles and everything you could think of that you could possibly abuse your heart with. And we'd go into that and it would be like this big trough feeding line, and then we'd go to our classes, and the evenings were spent with us going over airline codes.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Right, right. Yeah. But MCO, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

ITONE right now, check. Give me the test. Uh ITO is the one that always trumped everybody. And um, so we're in the school and we graduate. Now you and I became roommates, and I don't remember. Did Bill take off and go room with his sister? Because she had that condo, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yep. I think he I think she lived in uh near the the University of Smooth.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, SMU, right.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yep. I think he lived over there. Yep. And uh I was talking about that place we lived in Irving, and La Donna, what did we call her? La Donna Bonna. And how the hell did we end up with a cat? I don't remember that, but I remember we had a cat that sprayed everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, that was Anne's cat, Wiener.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

It was.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

It was Wiener.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Ah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know I didn't know that was hers. But I remember your mom. Uh she it was amazing. She was she got our shit together for us in terms of furniture and getting that place just livable. It was amazing. She was so great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Remember that? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, she was great. They brought it up. We loaded it in, couch, beds, uh, kitchenware, everything. And I remember, you know, this was like the flight attendant hub off Esther's Road in Irving. And every apartment complex was nothing but brand of flight attendants. It was and it was it was such a it was so character driven. Like we lived as you drove in kind of up on the hill there, two-bedroom loft. That was really popular back then. And then there was the swimming pool, which was really disgusting because in the summer everyone was out there laying by the pool with pool water that was 104 degrees. Everybody was all oiled up.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

And I remember the day Elvis died, I was sitting out there. Oh, really? Yes, sir. That little factory for you.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

And Belly and Melissa, the apartment faced the pool. Michelle and Ann's was across the parking lot from our complex. Yep. And one of the most distinguishable memories I have in our particular apartment, it was that ice storm, I think, of 1978, and uh everyone was landlocked, and our apartment complex was like one of the closer ones to the airport, and people were calling and saying, Can we come stay with you guys? We can't drive down the highways in a city. And we were like, Well, yeah, come on over if you can make it.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

And so Carlson, she she was a first skater.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, that's right. And uh I remember I don't know how many people we ended up getting in there, but I had a collection of wines, Gloria St. Julian, Chateau du Hart, Milan, Rothschild's, and I just finally said, let's just pull them out and drink them. And we ran out of firewood, and Robert uh Esparza, he he managed to get over there, or he lived in the complex, and we ran out of firewood, and he said, Hey, they're building an apartment complex next door. I remember Kenny Barr lived out there too, and we hustled over there and we started pulling all the lumber from the construction company. And before you knew it, the the important the whole complex was burning all the lumber.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, lumbo was two by first, man. They were crisp. You know, they were crisp, they burned the best, they burned hot.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Like we burned down an apartment complex that wasn't even built yet.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Uh uh uh oh man. Yeah, you burned up smoking pot. I just uh I remember running with you, and I think it was really hot back for summer. Well, I think it was 110, something like that. And I remember that big Texas sun sinking wherever it sunk, orange in the sky, right? And smoking a bunch of pot before we'd run. And somehow I got hooked on running. And I don't know how the hell that happened, but I swear we were I think it was just being high. It made it somehow tolerable, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Well, that was the whole thing about so ironic, right? About the complex that we led. I remember I we would have, you know, once we got introduced to Paccalolo from Michelle, right? And then I remember Bill started bringing over hash, and we'd have that glass bowl, and we'd have that needle tip, and we'd put a uh a clay of hash on there, and we would like sit around like we were like some kind of a tribe, and we would smoke hash, and we'd be drinking crows, and we'd be drinking wine. And it's you know, because back then the rules of flying were there were basically no rules, just in-flight safety. It totally.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Well, even that, I don't know if that was a rule. Um right. I mean, once you stepped into the Holston, it was all over. Yeah, there were no rules.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Yeah, once you stepped into the Halston. But there's here's um take me to because you were a Spanish speaker, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, I thought I was. Um, but but I think that's one of the reasons I got picked up is because I tested, I remember doing the test, and somehow I passed. Eva was a supervisor. Remember her? She flew for Pan Am and uh she was in charge of Spanish speakers, but I was astounded that I passed that Spanish test. Um and I think she kind of suspected that I wasn't a Spanish speaker after that, but yeah, it was one reason I got hired.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So you're doing some trips. Tell me about the trip when you guys were, I think you guys were waiting in the lobby of the hotel in Mexico, and some guy came with a knife and was trying to stab you guys.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

It was, yeah, we were working a trip to Panama. We were in North Carolina, and a guy asked me if I had some change, and I, you know, I was an asshole, kind of indignant. Uh, like, are you kidding me? No, I I'd be different now, I swear. But uh, so he came back to get me, but he ended up stabbing uh the other male flight attendant. I forget who that was. Um, and we took him to the hospital. I remember getting on the plane with we were kind of short staffed. But I remember the captain was kind of an old marine thug, and he just hated male flight attendants, you know. He's like, You fucking male flight attendants always getting in trouble. I he had no compassion for the guy who got stabbed. Fortunately, he was okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

But yeah, that was tragic.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, I remember you coming back and we were all sitting around the apartment and you were telling us that story. And it was like, wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Wishing you were there. You know, hopefully I gave you enough details so I could I could make you happy.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I I I don't know if you can remember the trip we did. We were coming out of uh Guam, and you know, we were forever partying in Guam right up to the minute that we had to go take a shower and get to the get to the airport. But I don't know if you remember there was a blind guy that we were flying with, and uh he had taken something, and we were about two hours into the flight, he got out of control where we had to like tackle him, tape him, and put him in a s in a seat with a seatbelt on.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

No kid, I remember that guy, and I remember he also had gotten drugged in Hong Kong. Yes, um, but he got on that flight. I remember he was trashed. I didn't remember taping him. Oh yeah, yeah. He looked he got a little unruly, huh?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

He was trying to get out of the plane. He was, and we were like, this guy is out of freaking control. And I remember we had to we had to grab him and wrestle him, and passengers were kind of flipping out, and I remember we had to tape him up and put him in a in a in a in a in a seat, put his seatbelt on. I think we got the extensions and we put them around his shoulders and closed his arms together, and we taped his mouth so he'd stop yelling. Like you said, once you jumped in that Halston suit, it was a fucking free for us.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Oh, it just you kind of knew what to do, you know. It just gave you all those skills, all the powers. I do remember flying out of, we were I think we were flying into Singapore. We had a typhoon. Yeah, and there were a whole bunch of us flying together as we did. And uh I remember all of us sitting down in a row in the back of the plane, just scared shit, was screaming. Uh, and that plane just taking huge, it would descend, you know, terrifying. Remember that?

SPEAKER_01 17:20

It was well, that was um how that started out is we were leaving, and the captain said, Hey, there's actually three typhoons, we're gonna fly under one, come up over the the the second one, and hopefully get to Singapore before the third one was gonna was gonna come, we were gonna cross. And I remember we were sitting in the back left side, and that plane was taking these huge dips. You could see the lightning outside, and the wingtips were folding up. We were dropping like six and seven hundred feet at a time.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I remember that.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, Michelle was sitting next to me, she was screaming with her nails in my forearms. She was so petrified. And she was and and yeah, I mean, you could hear everything being tossed, even though it was locked down in the galley, everything was being thrown everywhere. But but it was like a movie scene from the Twilight Zone with William Shatner, you know, looking out of the wing. It was it was so vividly bright, but I'll never forget how those wings were folding, and I was like, right. I don't know if this plane's gonna snap and that's gonna be it.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, was that a an SP or was that a big one?

SPEAKER_01 18:39

No, that was a big one, that was a lead sled. Uh-huh. That was a lead.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Okay, so I just I just had a memory, uh, not related to that, but I had a memory when we used to go over to Stanley on the other side of the island in Hong Kong. Remember? Go buy jeans. The cheap clothes in the knockhouse. But do you remember sitting in that restaurant and walking out without paying?

SPEAKER_03 19:05

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

We were we were so pissed that the service was so bad. And and those guys chased us. Uh I mean, talk about terrifying and exciting at the same time, right? We were we were indignant. I'm like, I don't know where we were getting off. It could have been the Halston, you know, but where we thought, we're just walking out of here. This guy's been serving his dog, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I don't remember that at all.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

I remember it vividly.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Well, it was it was Jordash jeans or sheet jeans that everyone would go buy in Stanley. The girls would go find places to buy you know black mollies or tenuate for their diet. That's so funny. And you know, and uh everybody, and then of course we were looking, you know, to get tailored suits. What do you remember about um the uh the Hyatt there in Kahloom?

SPEAKER_02 20:13

Hmm. Uh yeah, it's funny. Stacy was just telling me that she was there with us, and uh I don't remember the Hyatt that well. I like I remember the shared in Walker Hill really vividly in uh Korea. Right. But yeah, but I remember that hotel proximity to Yiwa and those other really cool stores. I was just fascinated by that stuff. I remember getting my my fortune red across the street in one of those little alleys, and I never will forget it to the day I died. I said, Okay, what's my life gonna be like? You will be very successful, you will own much real estate. And I'm like, oh that was like the farthest thing from whatever thing I had in mind for myself. Uh, but I just I'll never forget that. Uh somebody saying that stuff to me, and whether or not you know it's also relative.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Um well I mean you end up still living in the Pacific Northwest. Did you keep your place in Sun Valley?

SPEAKER_02 21:27

We no, we um but we ended up buying a lot of houses.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Um well there you go.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

And and flipping them and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so I did that. But uh I didn't envision that that as a career or whatever. But anyway, that was kind of fun to have somebody go, dude, where you had it.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah. And what about of course, you know, Sheridan Walker Hill, were you s were you at the hotel when President Park got assassinated and we all got locked into our Rooms for like four or five days.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

And we the captain filing him.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Donovan was there. Oh, that's right. And the guy that he was hanging out with were in the room next to me. Yes, I was there.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, and they and they had guards on each floor. They wouldn't let us out. And the and the captain was telling the gentleman, hey, you know, they gotta get fed, they gotta get out. And what I really remember just distinguishably about laying over in Korea was that we would always raid the liquor carts before we got off. Because the liquor was really lousy in Korea. And so we would take the champagne, we'd take the wines, we'd take the minis, and everybody would be on the bus, tired and exhausted, and we'd pull stuff out of our bag, once again, Halston luggage, and everybody would be all excited because we'd kidnapped, you know, beers and everything. So everybody had something to drink. And what I remember is that those windows in the rooms opened up and there was like this little concrete ledge. And people would use the concrete ledge as a refrigerator. So they'd put their beer and their cheeses and what have you, and you'd go to somebody's room to hang out, and like, oh, I needed, I forgot, oh, don't worry, just open up the window, and there'd be like a little shelf of food that people would keep out there during the winter months. And um, you know, of course, hiking up to where the monks were.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Oh man, that was cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I remember going up there once, and uh I was hanging out with Pam Rosevere, and I said, Hey Pam, I brought I brought a couple of joints, you know. And at that at that time, if you were caught with Pod in Korea, you were essentially in prison there for the rest of your life. And she goes, I can't believe, I can't believe, chick, that you that you got some. I said, Yeah, it's you know, it's some pakalolos, some thin joints. I I brought them in. So we go up to see the monks and get to be really friendly with them. We even get to wear one of their outfits and what have you. And I get and and and they smoked cigarettes. That's what was surprising. And that's why I thought, oh, it'd be cool, you know. Let me see if they'll smoke some wheat. But I remember when they were wearing their civvies, they would smoke cigarettes because they weren't your typical bald headed type monk monks, right? They were like they were Korean, they were they were Korean monks and they wore like these little type hats or whatever. So, anyways, I pulled this joint out and I give it to the monk, and he takes the hit off it, he makes his weird face, and he starts slapping the top of his head like Mo from the Three Stooges, and he's all like freaking out. And he's and basically he spoke Japanese because that's what Pam spoke was Japanese. She was a Japanese speaker, and he was talking Japanese, and she was saying, he says it's evil, that this is an evil uh uh tobacco, that it's no good, it's no good, that stop it, take it away, take it away. And of course, you know, I kind of felt bad about it. Uh, but yeah, I remember so I remember getting stoned with the monks.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

I remember going up there. You you remember uh how they do the air raids? Yeah, I did do them every month. And uh I remember I I don't know if you came with me, maybe you did, but uh we would play the game of going in a taxi, and we knew there was going to be an air raid. You'd have to get out of the taxi and go into a bomb shelter, right? And and the game was trying to figure out how to get back to Sheridan Walker Hill. Um it always kind of was that was fun for me. I uh and I uh it always killed me how they clean their cabs. They just hose them out with high pressure hoses uh and plastic covers on the seats and stuff. It was like, oh well, this is like so world.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I don't remember that at all.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

I do. I just you know they're kind of sticky and slimy and stuff, and I I guess they thought it was clean. Um that was fun. I I was laughing with Stacey. Did you ever go up to the DNZ? Uh I went there once. Did you?

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Oh, I know what she told me. She said, I remember you and me and Chick walked out of the hotel in Hong Kong. We all had our walkmans on because we were so addicted. Listening, I said, Yeah, to Pat Benatar.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

And she said, and one of you guys grabbed me. This car almost hit me. Do you remember that? Because I don't.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

Yeah, you're the one who grabbed her. I did. Yeah. No shit. Are you serious? Yeah.

unknown 26:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

And her headphones were on the side of her face. You grabbed her so you grabbed her so hard.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

So she honestly, that's a true story. Yeah. I'll have to tell her. That was really funny.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Oh no, yeah. I mean, they were on the side of her face. And you know, princess is princess. So first she's stunned, and then the second thing is she's stunned that somebody saw her face rattled with the headphones across her nose.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Oh well, she wore in her high spike shoes. Because she she we went hiking in those, I swear to God.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Because she didn't have any tennis shoes, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:20

She does nothing, God. But but in those days, that was kind of this OP.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah, that's crazy, man. No, but um how about Guam? Like it seemed like every time we laid over in Guam, it was like a non-stop party.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Do you remember the day that we were taxiing out? You know, we taxi out in the evening, right? Trans-Pacific coming back, you know, to uh LA. And I remember we were taxiing out, and Hardin Lawrence's son was at that station. He was actually oversaw Pacific Operations.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

I I don't remember that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

And we're and we're taxiing, and he's in a white linen pants and a white linen button shirt with his glasses on, as high as could be, because he'd been out partying with us, actually.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

Really?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

And he had, you know, come out to the airport to make sure everything was working fine, boozed up. And uh Larry Lawrence is, I think, was his name, and he's walking alongside the SP as it's taxiing off the tarmac. Just, you know, his fist is in the air, his fist is in the air, and the captain like stops the jet, and he's down there and he's just yelling. And I think the captain opens the window and shuts one of the motors down, and Larry's yelling, Braniff is the best airline in the world, you guys are the oh, kind of a cry thing, huh? Oh, a hundred percent. That guy was so whipped up. But the thing of it was is that he was at the hotel, somebody met him, he didn't say who he was. Okay, he didn't say, I'm Larry Lawrence, I'm head of operations of the Pacific, like his dad gave him something to do. They he just said that he was there on a layover because he would uh reside in Singapore and LA. And so one of the girls said, Hey, why don't you go with us? Remember, we'd go down to Yakatorys and we'd go eat. And he came down there, he ate with us, and then he says, What are you guys gonna do? I just oh, we're gonna go to some village. They have like these village parties once a month, you know, every month. And we're gonna go, can I go? We go, yeah, sure, come on with us, man. And we went, ate, got, you know, you know, drunk, everything that we would normally do. And then it was like everybody kind of had to wrap out because we go, hey, we gotta like, you know, fly in a couple of hours. We gotta go get our shit back together. And he went back to the hotel, right?

unknown 30:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

We went in, and I think Gail came up, and she goes, they were like all super paranoid.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Gail, because Fred, because he was big, he is big wicked.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

They knew who he was, but we didn't know who he was.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Oh, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

He had already been there a few days ahead of us, and they were like, Do you know who that guy is? And we were like, I don't know, man. He's just some guy that's been partying with us. And then that guy's the head of operations of the entire Pacific Division for Branham. And we were like, Oh, and then we were kind of freaked out because we were like, Hell, you know, is he gonna what's he gonna do to all of us? But he didn't do anything other than he had a great time with us, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Nothing, yeah. Yeah, Gail and Fred, man, they were really amazing. Oh that was those those layovers, that water skiing. It I mean, what a life we had, you know right?

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Hiking all the time.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Oh, just amazing, really sweet culture, bat stew, you know, or soup that mom would make, and uh talk to Mona, you know, all of it. It just those are excellent memories for me.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Going down to the south end of the island, I think, sitting on the dock where all those Japanese tourists came in, and Mo had a little hoofy doll on her arm that we picked up someplace. I I just remember crazy shit, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Yeah. Very interesting time. Yeah, especially when you came down to you'd gone home to Seattle and you came down and you go, uh call Bill up and and have him come over. Yeah, sure. And he goes, Hey guys, you want some tea? I got some mushroom tea that I just brought back. It was like that was that was my introduction to mushrooms, man. I was like, Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Where oh we uh Pete and I were out to dinner with uh a good friend of ours uh a couple weeks ago. And the reason I'm telling you this is it has to do with mushrooms, but he and his girlfriend were just jazzed about mushrooms, right? And and it was so funny because they kind of have this reverence for you know, like mushrooms are the insight of the soul. Yeah, I get that. But I I was telling him that wasn't what we were doing. We we just wanted to laugh, you know. I mean it just was trying to get out of that little apartment into the car was really a struggle. Right, and to not be able to leave the parking lot, that was really laughing in the car. We were so yeah, anyway. I loved you guys loved it too, you know. And Camillo, our friend, he's just you know, they're so much younger. We don't get it, we don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

I want to see if you can hang on to this memory. So so we're so there's you and me, and I had met uh Eliana Delion, she was Italian Nicaraguan, pretty girl, and she knew Peli Popovich. All right, they were both Spanish speakers, and I had invited Eliana and and because Pelle lived across, and we invited them over to come to the house for dinner to the apartment. And so they come over, we have like a half a jug of gallo wine. I don't know why we were drinking gallo, and they made some they made some pasta, yeah, Italian night, right? They made some pasta, we drank that wine, and I don't know if we took, we smoked a lot of pot, I remember. And there was a there was a there was a party at Tony's apartment a little further down the road on Esther's or near in somewhere near Irving. We went to the party and I was super blasted. And you were going, Are you all right, Checker? Yeah, I'm okay. I'm all right, you know. So we go inside this party, and I mean it's wall-to-wall people. And walk inside the party, and I'm like super high and super drunk. And you kept saying, Are you okay? I said, Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna go to the bathroom, I'll be I'll be back, I'll be fine. You go, okay, you sure? I go, Yeah, yeah, I'm all right. And I walk into this bedroom and I take the wrong turn in the bedroom to go to the bathroom, and I go into a walk-in closet. And I can't find the light switch, but I went into the bathroom because I was sick and I wanted to throw up.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

So I throw up, I find my way out, and I said, Don, I think I really do need to go home. And you said, Yeah, you look like you need to go home. You're you're you're like you're telling me I was like all like sweaty and profuse. And Alliana says, Are you okay? And Don says, Yeah, I think we need to get him home. So then the next day in the flight attendant lounge, these people were having a conversation and they're sitting on the couches, and I'm kind of sitting there waiting for you know the flight. And and and there are some flight attendants I didn't even know. And they go, Yeah, Tony, man, she's so fucking mad because she said that somebody threw up all over her clothes in her walk-in closet last night.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Did you own it? There's no way you own it.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I just sat there and kept my mouth shut.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Uh-huh. Yeah. You know. No, I don't remember that. So I was kind of I was kind of your one of your guys, your little guardian that night.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

You were you were my guardian a lot of times. I remember we started to go.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

But you know, I don't remember you being to the point where you couldn't manage yourself. It seemed like you always could manage yourself, you know. I guess so. Yeah, that's kind of my memory. It was you, it wasn't like you were in control. It's just you it didn't seem like you got way out there. That was rare in my experience.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yeah, well, that was a hidden one. That was when I was that was when I was in the closet and I hadn't come out yet.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

So totally. I'm so glad you did. So glad you did. You yeah, you might want to write Tony. She's still alive.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

Hey, so you're the galley counselor. It's always interesting that anybody that you talked to that we were around, you would always begin to put them in the couch and you would ask them, Well, Melissa, like, well, why did you do that? And did that did you did you is that from your mother, you know, you being raised by your mom? I mean, you would always break people down, and I'd just sit there and I'd listen to you and I go, like, wow, they're just kind of putting up with his QA, like, what's up with this, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:18

I mean I know it's it's really sick. And so what I discovered was uh it it's this I have this intense curiosity, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

And and I don't want to couch it as all being really sweet and good, but I ended up getting paid a lot to be curious about people, you know what I mean? And and it has been the frigging best job in the world. But those days I kind of I look back on that and I think I was not talking about myself. Um, whether it was I didn't know myself or what, or I I was afraid to come out, all sorts of bullshit. But I there was a way I would deflect and and kind of grill other people. And it's interesting to hear you say that, that you were aware of that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Oh, very much so, like constantly, and I was just I just kind of whether we were working with people on the plane or in the apartment or in their apartment or when we were at dinner with people, and I think one of the first people in your couch was Michelle.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

And because she was dating Russell Yap, the policeman at Honolulu Police Department, and oh my god, they were still kind of seeing each other long distance, and you know, she and you guys, you guys were seeing each other, not as boyfriend, girlfriend, but just you know. Yeah, yeah. But but she yeah, she she had a tough time.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah. Especially after she had she had to get her hair cut, that was like the most toughest of all of all times. That's right. That's like legendary.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Kelly didn't.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:59

Kelly didn't and she did.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Yeah, so so I just uh I I swear to god, I'm just curious. Even now, you know, I uh I just I love it. I work a day a week and uh I'm still digging it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Well, that's cool. I think you've probably been a great benefit to a lot of people. I mean, I remember a lot of people that you would talk to that they would sort of like leave with this either confused look on their face, or or they would leave it, yeah, or they would leave like feeling better of somebody listening to them and then finding a discovery about themselves. Because it's like both of you were in the process of figuring out what if there was an answer to your question, and if there was an answer to them questioning you why. Yeah, it was always interesting, you know, and that was not really like one of my surroundings to be around people like that, like you at that time period, right? I mean, you I I couldn't quite figure figure what that was about. You would have made a great producer in major media because of the comfort level that you put people on when you ask them questions.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

That's good feedback. Yeah, you know, uh um yeah. So the other thing I've discovered is I get bored really easy. And so like I'm uh I can do superficial talk and stuff, but I like to get into it. Uh and not everybody does, you know, so I've learned a really temporary that. But uh I think uh uh the questions came from kind of dealing with my own level of boredom and like let's get things moving, you know.

SPEAKER_01 40:53

Right, right. Well, you had uh every type of person that anyone can imagine works in the airline business as a flight attendant. Yep. You get you get every imaginable background that by the time you finish your fifth year as a flight attendant, pretty much any airline, you've already become a psychiatrist at that time.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

You know, you you you've already because you've dealt with so many different passengers, so many different instances, so many attitudes, lifestyles, everything. So that's kind of a given. You know, we're able to call out bullshit artists like almost immediately, like within their first word or their first look. Like we already know we've already got them nailed down. But um, but yeah, so Branna Foles and you Lala, we all retreat. You end up going on with Alaskan Airlines, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:51

Yeah, I did. I uh I was in the end at Branch, I was commuting out of Houston to Seattle, and uh I one night I was taking Pan Am back up, and I sat next to this woman who was the head of uh hiring and training for Alaska. This is before we went bankrupt, and she says, Hey, if you ever want a job, call me. And uh so boom, we went bankrupt. I called her and she had me in training in a matter of weeks. It was pretty amazing. Yeah. And that was a shock, man, to go to a little dinky airline after what we had been through. Uh but I was pretty grateful, you know, to be flying out of Seattle. Yeah. Yeah. So I stayed with them for a while for years. I studied, I I uh I got another another degree, I used the jump seat as my little desk, you know, serve a meal, come back and read. And uh so I was able to leverage that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

Yeah, no regrets.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Yeah. Yeah, I've had none along the way.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

So you with after Branick, did you get hired with Western? Did you go with somebody else?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

No, I actually got uh went in for an interview with Western and I made the mistake. Glenn Olsen said he made the same mistake of partying the night before with ex-Braniff people going in the next day, passed the interview, but I didn't pass the test that they had. There was a requirement. Like I flunked it. So it was like test as in written test? Yeah, written test, like 50 questions. And so they said you can reapply in six months, and I never went to reapply, and uh and and Glenn did, and he got picked up by Weser and eventually turned into, I guess, Delta, right? Yeah, and so I went off to the other side, went and studied radio, television, and film.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Yeah, yeah. Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Yeah, so I get into radio, television, and film. I'm working for the local NBC affiliate in San Antonio, Cam OL. TV. I'd been there for like five years learning my chops. And then the Oklahoma City bombing comes, and the networks were short of independent contractors in the field of television to cover things at that scale. So a colleague of mine that I had met through Camwell, he was an independent guy named John Feiss. He says, hey man, you need to like leave and come out here because the networks are going to start hiring independent broadcast technicians. And that's when I jumped off. And ended up making a career working for NBC News, the Today Show, MSNBC 2020. Tier one. None of this, like I mean, actual tier one, 48 hours dateline on the broadcast side. On the technical side. That's right up here. Yeah, it was it was perfect.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

And then until recently, one flight, one crew, one layover can be a memory of a lifetime.