I was a stewardess of a large airline company back in the days, exactly forty years ago and I loved doing it. People who are stewards in the airline are now called hostesses or flight attendants. I had many wonderful experiences, some funny, some not-so-funny, and even a few very frightening moments. Anytime you deal with the public, it is always an interesting and ever changing experience. The job was very tiring. There were flights that required serving a full meal to a cabin-full of passengers like the flight from Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee. That flight route took only thirty minutes to travel, so by the time we were up on the air and everyone settled in for us to do our work, we were then advised to prepare ourselves for landing. It occurs oftentimes as the plane touches down on the runway, we were still up clutching our food trays. It was such an arduous job, requiring extensive hours and very stressful on the body. The plane cabin’s atmosphere was dry, and the combination of the cabin pressure and being on our feet so much really took its toll on the legs. Varicose veins are a common thing with stewardesses like us, that is why we wore support stockings at that time to lessen its occurrence. I never really complained with the kind of work I had been doing but the only thing that concerned me was my exhausted legs after the flight.
