1971

MOLLY SCHIOT

My mom, Holly, has been a flight attendant at Delta Airlines for more than forty years and still works for them. She’s waited on passengers who smoked cigars, or who spit out tobacco in plastic cups that she had to clean up, or who hit on her after one too many Jack and Cokes. In the early days, she got weight-checked and had to wear degrading uniforms, including high heels for ten hours straight—in the air. In an ingenious move, she bought ugly teeth at a joke shop and, to avoid harassment, she wore them when the male passengers would get too wasted.

I have never met anyone who has taken so much pride in their job. She has such camaraderie with her friends she flies with. They fly to Thailand and, on their layovers, take cooking lessons. They travel through sacred temples in Japan, and tour monuments in Manila, and drive through the countryside in Ireland. They never stop learning.

I’ll never forget a day in kindergarten. It was Bring-Your-Parent-to-School Day, and it was designed to introduce different careers to the class. When I came in from recess my mom and her best friend, Mary Jane, greeted my entire class at the door. They handed us fake tickets and welcomed us aboard. They had rearranged the classroom to look like an airplane and carefully helped us to our seats and took our coats. Once we were seated, they served us red or white (grape juice) and handed us peanuts and playing cards and then gave us the instructional routine. Our six-year-old minds were blown. I know that every kid went home that night, proudly wearing their plastic gold-painted wings, and told their parents they wanted to work for Delta when they grew up.