Those were the good ole days.
Pilots back then were men who weren't looking to "get in touch with their feminin sides" and didn't even know what the heck that means. Pilots knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. Pilots drank coffee and whiskey, smoked cigars, didn't wear digital nerd watches and if they felt like dropping a Colt .45 into their flight bags they bloody well did it.
They carried their own suitcases and brain bags like the real men they were. Pilots did not go through the terminal impersonating a caddy pulling a bunch of golf clubs, computers, guitars, and feed bags full of tofu and granola on a sissy-trailer with no hat and granny glasses hanging on a pink string around their pencil necks while talking to their personal trainers on a cell phone.
Being an airline Captain was as good as being the King in a Mel Brooks movie. All the Stewardesses ("Flight Attendants" today) were young, attractive, single women that were
proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution. They didn't have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door like the braying aisle donkeys today. They would blush and say thank you when told that they looked good instead of filing a sexual harassment claim. Junior Stewardesses shared a room and talked about men...with no thoughts of substitution.
Passengers wore nice clothes and were polite; they could speak AND understand English. They didn't speak gibberish or listen to loud garbage pumped into thier vacant noggins. They bathed and didn't smell like a rotting pile of garbage in a jogging suit and flip-flops.
Children didn't travel alone, commuting between trailer parks. When present they were quiet and said "please" and "thank you" because Mom or Dad had some strong medicine at hand if they failed in that regard.
There were no Biggest Losers asking for a seatbelt extension or a Scotch and grapefruit juice
cocktail with a twist.
If the Captain wanted to throw some offensive, ranting jerk off the airplane, it was done without any worries of a lawsuit or getting fired.
The Cheif Pilot used to have your back and wasn't some management lacky plotting to stick a knife in it. And Heaven help the headquarters noob who messed with one of his men. They were HIS pilots and HE would take care of that.
Axial flow engines crackled with the sound of freedom and left an impressive black smoke trail like a locomotive burning soft coal. Jet fuel was cheap and once the throttles were pushed up they were left there. After all, it was the jet age and the idea was to go fast and run like mercury.
"Economy cruise" was something in the performance book, but no one knew why or where it was. When the Mach airspeed warning went off no one got all tight and scared because Boeing built it out of iron. Nothing was going to fall off and that sound had the same effect on real pilots then as Viagra does now for these new age guys.
There was very little plastic and no composites on the airplanes (nor the Stewardesses' pectoral regions). Airplanes and women had eye-pleasing symmetrical curves, not a bunch
of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow diverters, tattoos, nose rings, or other nasty hardware.
Airlines were run by men like C.R. Smith, Bob Six, Pat Patterson and Juan Trippe. Men who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew most of their employees by name, and were lifetime airline employees themselves...not pseudo financiers and bean counters who flit from one occupation to another for a few bucks more, a better golden parachute or a fancier title, all the while fervently believing that they are a class of beings unto themselves.
And so it was back then....and never will be again!
