My generation grew up swooning over Paul Newman. In the summer of 1970 I "saw" Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid at least a dozen times. It was playing at the local drive-in, and my beloved was going off to college. We had to say we were going someplace. It was a great movie (I think) and the soundtrack for some fine, er, moments that I almost remember.
But I digress. During my years of laboring on MississippiRiverLand Airlines' (not its real name) jets as a flight attendant, I saw Paul Newman two times. The first was in the gate area at LAX (Los Angeles) when a gate agent pointed him out to me in the next gate area. I would never have recognized him. He was short, and, at least at that ungodly hour of the morning, not nearly as good looking, in person.
The other was later, and remains my favorite story from my flying days. It was probably 1978, because I'd just come off reserve and was flying an all-night-turnaround with a very junior cabin crew. I was the Flight Attendant in Charge. Back then, we were called "A line" because our name was on the "A" line of the trip paperwork, the name of which I can't recall for the life of me (did I mention the memory is going?). It was a pretty grueling trip. We signed in at about 6:00 in the evening and went Atlanta-Chattanooga-Cincinnati-Detroit-Tampa-three hour nap in a black Naugahyde recliner in a blacked out basement room in the airport-Atlanta, getting home, with any luck, just before sunrise. I really loved driving home through downtown as the amazing colors of dawn crept into the sky, but I digress again.
This day, upon checking in with the gate agent as the A Line, I was told that Joanne Woodward and a young man who was not identified would be traveling with us to Lexington and that they'd be boarding last (or was it first, I can't... oh, hell). Pleased with our light load and having something special to mark the time, I headed down the jetway to the Boeing 727 to prepare for the short hop beverage services. I bet they don't serve anything on those today. I'm pretty sure the seat belt sign never went off on those first two legs, but the No Smoking light did, and we served. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I stood just inside the door of the plane as the passengers boarded, tearing the little tab off of their boarding passes, welcoming them onto the flight and directing them to their seats. I did this for every passenger (without noticing him), before heading to the back of the plane where I was going to serve from a tray from back to front until I met the cart working from front to back, while the fight attendant working first class settled in Ms. Woodward and her traveling companion with beverages on the ground.
We took off. Everything was normal. I served the smokers sitting in the very back on the co-pilot's side next to the galley and headed to ask the single man sitting alone by the window in the three seat row on the Captain's side just in front of the galley. It was sometime around sunset, and, as we were headed from south to north, the sun was shining straight in these west facing windows. When I leaned down and said, "Can I get you something to drink?" he turned from looking out the window toward me and the sun shot through his eyes and nearly knocked the wind out of me. I grabbed the seat backs of his row and the row in front to avoid stumbling backwards. He immediately knew he'd been recognized. I immediately realized he didn't want to be. There was a moment of frozen inability to even breathe, much less manage to stammer, as he handed me a twenty and asked for two Jack and cokes and I just stood there, bent over, trying to gather myself. I went to the galley and held on to the counter ledge trying to figure out what to do. I caught my breath, sort of, and fixed his drinks, and his alone. Normally I'd have taken two or three (four?) rows of orders until my brain was full and I couldn't remember any more. I served him with comic deference, still stammering, but regaining enough composure to make a little fun of my agitated state. That's how the rest of it went. I never said anything beyond what was required to provide him with four Jack & cokes over two legs of flight and give him his change, which was all somehow comical for both of us. I didn't tell any other crew members until he was gone, thinking that was obviously what he wanted. I did go up front and speak to Ms. Woodward and her companion briefly, and I did stand at the front of the plane and wish everyone a good day as they deplaned. When he came off, last of all the passengers deplaning in Lexington, I said, with a tad too much emphasis, "Thank you, for flying MississippiRiverLand!" He laughed and did a little fake (I think) pratfall stumble as he stepped into the jetway, turned around afterward, winked and kind of half waved. I took a very deep breath.
With years to think about it, I've assumed he bought the row to guarantee some privacy, that the agent knew about it and didn't tell us because our famous passenger didn't want to be recognized. It was my best MississippiRiverLand Airlines moment ever, and there were some great ones. I hung out in the back of an airplane talking to the group America one day, carrying a very light load ATL-LAX (they were so nice). I took care of a completely obnoxious (and high as a kite) Big Rock Star (still very famous - you know you want to click that link) in first class from New York to ATL (he spent an inordinate amount of time in the lav). There were politicians, jocks and broadcasters too many to list (one very drunk sportscaster exiting New Orleans in the wee hours after the Sugar Bowl spending the whole flight to ATL necking in the last row of first class stands out), but nothing was as wondrous as that moment I realized that Paul Newman was hiding, back in the cheap seats. Wow.
This world is a little less bright without him in it. Peace. Out. Y'all.
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