Braniff Chronicles
"Go behind the galley curtain with inside stories from flight attendants of the 20th century's greatest airlines. From the glamour of the 60s to the high-flying 80s, these are the untold tales of the crews who navigated the heyday of major commercial flight."
Braniff Chronicles
The Nickname man: Herman Johnson
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Clock #434: The Nickname Man! We called him Anaconda, Spongehead, and Blackman—but he was also known as one of the most respected Flight Attendants in the fleet. From our days busting Don Moffett to hanging out with the most beautiful women in the sky, we’ve got some incredible stories. Tune in for Herman’s encounter with Dean Martin, and the powerful story of how he survived one of the most horrific accidents in Flight Attendant history.
Have a story of your own to share? Text me at 210-573-6990. Mahalo—spark up those memories, because we are all part of Cool!
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Braniff Tickets Jackets by: Betty Churchwell
Music Licensed by: Pixabay
Music by: Nerdy Boyz
Song: Dance Energy
What life is really like at 30,000 feet. We're taking you behind a curtain to share the secret histories of the crews who defined an era. Travel from the chic elegance of the 60s to the high flying energy of the 80s. An era of disco, icons, world-class service that will never be seen again. Welcome to the Brandeff Chronicles. Here we go. Three, two, one. Hello, everybody. This is Chick Cruz. My number, clock number is 41352. Welcome to another episode of the Braniff Chronicles. And today I'm joined by Herman Johnson, based in DFW. Uh, was is a good friend of mine, was a roommate of Richard Mao. And welcome to the show, Herman. Do you promise to tell the truth, to hold truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you, Braniff? I do, sir. And what was your clock number?
SPEAKER_00I really don't remember my clock number because I was with several airlines, so it may have been 434.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. So take us back to how did you come about hearing that Braniff was hiring flight attendants, or how did you come across applying for a job to be a flight attendant with Braniff? What were you doing at the time that you went, hey, this might be a pretty cool job. What were you doing at the time?
SPEAKER_00Well, the funny thing about it was that I really didn't apply for the job. I was at the University of Missouri right after I graduated and I was working there. And my brother had graduated with me or before me. And he he was on campus when they came to recruit. And he put my name in because he was a former football player, so he thought he was too big, so he put my name in for application.
SPEAKER_02And what happened after that?
SPEAKER_00Well, after well, you know, he told me I went to the um uh central casting, so to speak, interview, and uh, you know, there were so many people that were outstanding candidates, and I I just gave a simple rendition, but afterwards uh the lady said she had a question about my application, and you know, could you talk to me afterwards? So that was then that she told me that they wanted me to advance to the next interview.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so she sidelined you so nobody else would hear that.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And did they did they take you to the next level that same day?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, it was like uh a two-week later appointment. I had to fly to Dallas. Uh-huh. And in fact, the lady that interviewed me at that first interview was Pat Dappermont. I don't know if you remember her.
SPEAKER_02I think so. I think she was our supervisor out in LA with Ildico Woods.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_02That's right. Pretty lady. Yeah, I liked her. Very beautiful. Yeah, very tolerant of me.
SPEAKER_00Well, all the ladies are tolerant of you.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Because that's when her and Ildico going, you know, chick, we know you're a little wild in Dallas. And now that you're out here in LA, could you tone it down a little bit? Yeah, okay, Pat. Like they took me out to go play tennis with them somewhere in LA at some club, and they were like, they were taking it's kind of like them taking you off to the they were taking me off to the side from the rest of the base, going, could you tone it down a little bit out here?
SPEAKER_00You were a wow, man.
SPEAKER_02There's no question about that. Come here. Quiet, hush. So um after that, how long was it before you went ended up going to the college to get trained?
SPEAKER_00Uh let's see. I think that was like in um August and in September.
SPEAKER_02Right. So you go to you go to the you go to the you know the the college there at the Royal Coach Inn. And who was your roommate there when you were in training?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I would be indisposed to even come up with a name. Right. Hold on, you know what? It could have been uh what was his name? Um a white guy, uh Tom, Tom, Tom Waddams, I think, was my roommate. Oh, really? Wow. That's right, yeah. Tom Waddams was my roommate. Right. Yeah. Right. So what was training like? It was really interesting. Uh, you know, uh they laid it out for us. We stayed at the Dumfries Hotel on Northwest Highway, and uh it was real elaborate, you know. They gave it, they gave us the flight attendant uh concept in in layers, and it was really well well thought out and well done.
SPEAKER_02And then so you go through training, you graduate, and what happens to you next? Where do you where do you how do you find an apartment? Who do you live with, and what was your first trip like as a reserve?
SPEAKER_00Well, like I said, that was all uh like scatter shot. You know, we all just uh went different places and and uh that was my first time in Dallas, that was my first time in Texas. I didn't know anybody, so it was uh it was quite the the process to get an apartment, but you know, yeah, we we gathered, we made it. Right. It was you know, you know, going from just different place to place.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And how did you end up you and Richard Ma becoming roommates?
SPEAKER_00Uh that took a little bit. Uh we weren't we weren't roommates at first because Richard was in the class behind me.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So uh I think it like I think we worked about three or four months, and then after that, uh we just thought about getting together and and we became roommates in an apartment complex in Irving, Texas.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you guys were the complex. Yeah, you guys were the complex right before the complex that Don Baker and I lived in, and Michelle and Ann Adams, we all lived down in that other complex. You guys lived one up from us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, and it was a it was a bunch of uh flight attendants that was in that area, and and you know, like I said, we would all go over each other's apartments and we would all do different things, but we had a lot of fun, it was really great, right? Uh, you know, me and Richard threw parties, and you know, we did two types of cooking. You know, he did his Chinese, right, Hawaiian cooking, and I did black southern cooking, and we had we had fun.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, you guys were always chowing down on food, man. That's one thing about Richard, man. That guy can eat like nobody's business.
SPEAKER_00Oh, no question. Well, you know, the drugs do that, chick.
SPEAKER_02You know that's what they call munchies.
SPEAKER_00That's right. 24 hours a day, you know.
SPEAKER_02That's what they call munchies. Yeah, so, anyways, I didn't meet you, I mean, really, until did I know I I think I met you before we got that flight to Hong Kong, right? I already knew you. Like we never worked together until we worked Hong Kong.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. But I had been over your house with Richard, you know, your apartment, you know, so we had gotten together before then. But the funny thing about it was I just wasn't a part of the group per se. Because unlike a lot of you guys, I had a girlfriend, and that's that took up most of my free time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it kept you kept you hunkered down, kept you responsible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. It kept me away from the the drug addicts and uh, you know, rouse about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, you know, we're flying the line, and I'm gonna bring up some names because there's there's you know, there's a couple of, you know, like I remember we had like nicknames, right? I think Lamar Smith, I think you called him Arrowhead because he had that haircut. Yeah, that kind of like it looked like an arrowhead on him, but the way he had his his uh his fro trim back. There was like Lamar Smith, and he was dating Donna at that time. He was our big snowball back then.
SPEAKER_00Uh oh, I'm telling you, oh, he was yeah, he was uh uh Miami Vice personified.
SPEAKER_02Oh, totally. Yeah, they wrote Miami Vice around Lamar Smith.
SPEAKER_00Hold on, I gotta give you a story about Lamar. We were flying on a 747, I don't know even know where we were going, and he came out of the galley and he had coke all over his nose. I said, Lamar, go in there and wipe your nose.
SPEAKER_02What did he say? I was eating powdered donuts.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, no, he just was he, you know, he you know, sniffed and and I said, Lamar, go in there and clean your nose, man.
SPEAKER_02Please, please. Now, in case you didn't know Lamar Smith, the one thing that if you did know him, here's the one thing you will remember about him. Lamar was like, what, about 6'3?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, about 6'3.
SPEAKER_02He was he was Billy D. Williams handsome.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, he was.
SPEAKER_02He was very handsome, had a great sense of humor, dressed super well, super sharp. Uh, when I was based with him in San Antonio near the inn, he drove a really nice 528 BMW, uh, had a real nice house. Uh, yeah, great guy. Love working with him, you know, highly responsible like the rest of us for being drug heads and being on the line. Uh, but everybody had their own little riff, right? So, I mean, the whole thing of it came down to this. If you had to execute an evacuation, we could all do it under the influence. Somehow we got trained the right way. That's all I can say. I didn't, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, I went to the training center. Anyways, so here's another one. Mark Norwood. What was your nickname for Mark Norwood?
SPEAKER_00Oh, God.
SPEAKER_02He was like California type guy, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I mean, oh, he was so cool. He was so cool, he was cold. Uh, let's see. You know what? I don't remember the the name I had for Norwood, but it was we ridiculed that guy from front to back, and he loved every every drop of it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because he was always trying to be the ultimate black cool guy. Oh, yeah. And it was good to bust a riff on him when he realized, like, you know, you're really not that cool, Mark.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. Listen, you're really not even black, Mark. You know, I don't think Mark knew who he was, okay. Mark was trying to be somebody that he wasn't. That was a good one. You're so right about that.
SPEAKER_02You're absolutely right about that. And I remember he had these K2 snow skis. He owed me money. Uh, I don't know if it was because he was renting a room where I was living with Bill in Arlington while we were commuting back and forth from LA. Bill had moved out of his sister's apartment, got a house in Arlington. I moved all my stuff over there. Somehow Norwood owed me $200 and it was going into ski season, and he was having a fucking fit. And I said, Man, you owe me $200. And if you don't give me the $200, you're never gonna get those K2s back, man. And you know, $200 back then was a that was probably the price of the skis without the bindings. And he was he was flipping out, and I think I remember maybe Richard, like a bunch of people came, you know, to support me on my side. He was like, hey, you know, like you own the 200 bucks. And I had the I had the snow skis. I had actually moved them out of the house. So when he came looking for him, Bill said, like, Chick took him, man. I mean, I don't know where he's got him. He looked in the garage, but he took them, says you owe him money. Uh, but yeah, that busted his cool that day, and he had to come over the 200 bucks, but you know, I still love you, Mark. And then there was um, who else was it? You had a nickname for everybody out there on the line. Uh there was another guy named Mark, white guy, curly hair. You called him Bird Dog because he had that bird dog look to him. Uh, I can't remember what his last name was.
SPEAKER_00And and who was who was who was the big guy? What was his name? Um the good-looking kid, good-looking white boy.
SPEAKER_02Um, the Don Moffitt man?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I called him Ricky Nelson because he was so cool, you know. He reminded me of Ricky Nelson. He looked like him, but that's what I called him. But oh, he was so cool. I just hey, he used to he used to freak me out with his coolness, you know.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, that was a time where, like, we had talked about with Madeline, we went on that trip to Hong Kong.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it was two cool Don Moffat, and here we were like a rat pack, and he thought that like he could stride this handsomeness with the other, you know, eight female flight attendants, and we like clipped his wings off at every turn. Going out there. It's not about looks, Don, it's about a sense of humor.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, it's about throwing how to dance. It's about hey, listen, he was he was uh uh Norwood's alter ego as a white guy. You know what I mean? He was so cool. He thought he was black, you know what I mean? It was one of those situations. But anyway, you know what? The thing about nicknames was I gave Madeline a nickname Stradlin Madeline, right? I kind of stuck with her, right? And uh there was somebody I called Hoghead, I can't remember who it was, but yeah. The nickname thing came from the nickname uh situation came from St. Louis. Everybody in St. Louis had a nickname. So when I got the places that I was, that's what I did. I just gave everybody because it was easier for me to remember the nickname than it was anything else.
SPEAKER_02So there you have it, folks. Bran of International. Herman Johnson had a nickname for everybody that he flew with. I did, I did.
SPEAKER_00I gave everybody a nickname. You know. But listen, I gotta tell you the story about me and Richard. We flew together uh domestically, and we were coming into uh Houston. So what happened was I uh I was playing around with the Chinaman because that's what I called him. I never called him Richard.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I called him Chinaman, and he called me, you know, uh uh black man or or a nig man or whatever you wanted to call me. Right. So we you know we had fun like that. But anyway, we're coming into Houston, and I was I think I was like the purser on the flight, and I was I got on the mic and I started singing a song by uh Dean Martin. Have you ever heard that song by Houston by Dean Martin? No, uh uh it's uh it goes something like this Well, it's lonesome in this old town. Everybody puts me down. I'm a face without a name, just walking in the rain, going back to Houston, Houston. So anyway, that was a song. So what happened was every I was singing that song, right? So me and Richard was at the front door. So everybody, all the passions got off, and they were just laughing and oh, that was a great song, you got a great voice, and blah, blah, blah, blah. So about midway through, um, a man in a suit came to the front door and he stopped. And he he looked at me and Richard and he said, Uh, here's my card. I want you guys to come in and see me. And I can't remember his name, but he was the vice president of labor relations with Brandon. So we had to call, we made the appointment to come in and see. So we came in we came in and scene, you know, and he remembered us, you know. So he set us down and he said, um, listen, he said, listen, you guys are great flight attendants. He said, but listen, you gotta be careful what you do because nobody can pull it off the way you guys can. So let's just tone that down a little bit. Oh man, because we, you know, we came here with the precondition that we were gonna get fired, you know, but it was free.
SPEAKER_02You guys got a soft reprimand.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he kind of like, you know, hit us, hit us on the back of the hand, you know, slapped us a little bit. But yeah, it was it was crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, even before the world was politically correct back then, I think he knew in the best interest of not it going down a major lawsuit, you fire a Chinaman at a black man on the same day was not going to go over well.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, no, and especially when everybody cheered getting off the plane, because that's what he mentioned also. He said, hey, listen, it went over real big and all kinds of stuff. But I never sang again on the plane, though. I did take his advice.
SPEAKER_02Now, for everybody in our audience, you know, Herman Johnson did not indulge. I don't think I've ever seen you certainly not smoke a cigarette. I don't remember you ever drinking anything. You weren't into a pocket lola like we were, but I do like the story of when Richard handed you a uh a hit of Paccalolo, and I think you guys are polishing your car, and you said you were polishing the hood of your car and you kept going until you slipped off.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Oh, it was crazy. Yeah, I was polishing my car and I was bent over, you know. So I was polishing it and uh I just stumbled backwards away from my car because it hit you know it exploded in my head, and it's like, oh my God. It's like, you know, my you know, my spirit separated from my body. So I took like giant Nazi steps into the house and fell in my bed and slept for 24 hours. And when I got up, I promised the Lord I would never do another piece of drugs from anybody, but I wanted to try it. That's what happened. So yeah. But listen, I got I got one more story to tell about Braniff, and that's about the family structure of Braniff, and that is I was in a serious car accident where I had uh had a head-on collision at 60 miles an hour on Longview Road right next to the airport, DFW. And uh I went to Parkland Hospital for like nine days in intensive care. And um I'll tell you, the the love, the concern that I got from the people at Brandon was overwhelming. And even I had visitations from people that were schedulers, like five or six different schedulers came to the hospital to see me. So that just goes to show you how you know close we were.
SPEAKER_02And you know what's as a family. You know, the most bizarre thing of all of that is like I don't remember where I was when that happened to you.
SPEAKER_00Well, like I said, we um actually when they found me, I they found me on the road dead. Uh in fact, the uh paramedics left me on the road for dead. But it's uh it's a long story.
SPEAKER_02Wasn't it an RN that ended up coming by to you, a nurse?
SPEAKER_00It did. It happened in front of her house.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00It happened in front of an RN's house, and it also happened in front of a lady that had worked at a hospital that was a nurse that had taken the backway home for the only time in her existence. So yeah, it was a collaboration of those two people that saved my life. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02And the paramedics left you for dead?
SPEAKER_00They did. Oh, well, you know, I was a black man and hit a white woman. You know how that goes. You know, the black the black people die first in the movies. You all you understand that.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I you know, and I don't remember that time frame. I can't think of because you were still flying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, it happened on December 4th, 1980. That was that's that was the day of the accident.
SPEAKER_02Then I was out in LA, and if I was not in LA, I was on a turnaround, traveling somewhere in the South Pacific or Far East, uh, or eight. Because I would come, I would, I would come in, I would change clothes, and you know, in the in the the 747 would turn around and I would go back as a pass rider and I would hop all over the the Pacific. I would just like, you know. Because I knew where the rotation was. I'd bring it back in. And then I'd go to D's house or I'd go to M. Rosevere's house. I'd go to some flight to his house, change clothes, wash, and all that, have a down day one or two days, and then go back out working a flight. I mean, I did that for about four months nonstop. And uh so I must have been outbound back and forth when you were there. I mean, did Richard come in and see you? Where was he at that time?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think you guys were based in LA then. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you know, you got the news late. So yeah, you know, people staggered in to see me. I spent nine days at Parkland Memorial Hospital in intensive care.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Wow. That's an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_00I got there, the doctors, yeah. The doctor said I wasn't gonna make it. So it was it was amazing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was a void back then, because you know, unless you had a pocket full of quarters, call somebody, or you happen to be at home, and the phone rings and pick it up, or your answering machine would play back something like we didn't know what was going on with any of us. We were just so scattered, you know, and communication was really like calling scheduling and scheduling and saying, Hey, you're doing this or you're doing that, or getting your pattern and flying it. But uh yeah, that yeah, that was that's a mind-blowing story, man. Shoot, but the schedulers showed up to see you, huh?
SPEAKER_00They did, they did. The thing about it was they contacted my parents and uh really killed us right away. Yeah, I had the friend to take care of me like uh tomato and his wife. Yeah, tomato yeah, yes, yeah, he took care of me. Wow, I had another friend to do that too. Yeah, because I had an apartment by myself, and you know, they came over, took me to the hospital, cooked meals, everything. You know, yeah, I'm in everybody's uh bonus. Okay, you know what I mean? Okay, so get over it.
SPEAKER_02We'll be back and see him later. Yeah, that's a yeah, that's exactly the prime time when we were gone to the Far East.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, oh yeah. What thing you ought to do with the Chronicles, dude. You ought to look up different people. There's a lot of people in Minnesota that you need to look up. Well, I guess the Kaziski and Sticky Lands, you know, people like that.
SPEAKER_02Sure, Tracy. I mean, I would love to. Uh a lot of this is just basically like you mentioning somebody and for our audience out there, anybody that you know that was based in Minnesota or Minneapolis, certainly Denver. Uh and the South American cruise, I've been waiting for someone to like, you know, reach out to us at the Brown of Chronicles. I mean, just somehow get in touch with uh with us so that we can set up an interview, or if you know somebody and we can contact him, that would be great. And on this edition of uh the Brand of Chronicles with Herman Johnson here, I will put into the description what my cell number is so you can text me. Uh so if you want to reach out with somebody you think I should interview, that would be great. I'd love to have some more people on, especially the five times that flew the Mactor in Vietnam. I really want to hear their story. But remember, only text me because I have I have a special deep state block on my number. And if you call it, it will not pick up the way you think it's gonna pick up. So it's always best to text me and I'll return a call to you uh from the brand of Chronicles. But um, what else would you like to share with us?
SPEAKER_00Well, the first thing I like to share is the reason I wasn't a member of the group was I was a Vietnam vet and I had been a police officer before I went to Brandon. So that was the main reason that I didn't do a lot of drugs or drinking or my friends. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you were in Vietnam at the time that my father was in Vietnam and my brother.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I was and then uh you became a police officer, right?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you have a stellar career, I mean. And then after Brandon, did you go straight into United? How did you get into United?
SPEAKER_00Oh well, what happened was I I went to TWA first before United.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then what happened was I I left TWA before they went out. And I had one day off, and I started with uh United the day after. Wow. And worked with them for 25 years and retired from San Francisco.
SPEAKER_02Fortunate it were you on that one, I forgot TWA.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah, I was with them for 13 years.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Never missed a day.
SPEAKER_02And then we had the five channel that flew with us uh flew TWA ride, and he got busted for trying to smuggle heroin and spent 20 years in a French prison.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was uh game solid. You remember games?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we drove the uh the the what was it? 240z code with Sarah McConnell. I don't know if you remember her, but uh that was his girlfriend at the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a hiccup in his career there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he did. He did.
SPEAKER_02But he he survived it. I mean, he's back, I mean he's free again, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. He he served his time, you know. You know, served his country well in prison, but yeah, he got out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we love you. If you ever hear this or anyone sends it down the line, believe me, you are still a part of us, and we don't see you any different than we saw you back then, which was having a good time.
SPEAKER_00We like we like we like to hear. We have stories for sure, man.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's the excitement about working for Brandeff International Airways. There was never a dull flight, never a dull layover, never a dull, you know, roommates and and passengers almost forgot about them. I mean, they they are the backbone of everything that we did, good or bad. But, anyways, well listen, thank you for joining us on the Brandef Chronicles. We're happy that you're alive from serious car accidents.
SPEAKER_00If I could survive anything, today.
SPEAKER_02All right, we wish the best to you. Thank you for joining us, and to everybody out there, thank you for listening to the Brand of Chronicles. Keep flying, be safe, and uh we'll catch you on the next Brian of Chronicles. Aloha. Okay, hang on. One flight, one crew, one layover. Could be a memory of a lifetime.