On Life and Love after 50 eNewsletter
Tom Blake Columnist
The May 9 eNewsletter was titled, “A senior man’s first-date jitters.” The man was Bill, and he described his date with Jackie. Bill felt Jackie didn’t have an interest in him. They didn’t go out again. In that article, I shared my opinion about Bill’s date.
There were many responses expressed by Champs, offering advice for both Bill and Jackie on how each could have improved their hour-long date.
Two weeks later, Champ Mike emailed me about that May 9 eNewsletter.
Mike wrote, “You, Tom, do appear to be a very nice, compassionate guy in your response to Bill. Frankly, I thought there were enough clues early in the date for Bill to cut the date short and say, ‘It’s been nice meeting you’ and leave.
“I was divorced and single from age 45-60. I dated first with referrals from friends, then dating services like “It’s Just Lunch,” and finally tried some online dating sites.
“I found my love at 60 and have now been married 20 years.”
I responded to Mike: “How did you meet your wife? Online? Or otherwise?
Mike wrote, “I met my wife on a Delta flight. She was a Delta Flight Attendant. It was on one of the first flights leaving Cincinnati after 9/11. The airplane, a 757, was virtually empty, very spooky.
“Everyone was nervous to fly, including the employees
I was traveling with, and my son, to visit my brother in Hartford.
I was seated in first class, no other passengers were up there, and Kathie was the Flight Attendant. We talked for the entire 2-hour flight. I thought she had to be married, but my son said he didn’t see a wedding ring.
“A few months later, I ran into Kathie at the airport as I was leaving for a flight, she was leaving at the gate next to mine. I immediately asked for a dinner date. She accepted, but due to our travel schedules, it was a couple of months before we could. When the day arrived, she preferred to pick me up, since she had two kids, age 2 and 4, at home.
“When she arrived, standing in the doorway framed by the overhead light, she took my breath away. Unrecognizable from her plain flight attendant uniform, she was stunningly beautiful. I never dated anyone else again. We dated for two years, were engaged for one year, and this June 4th was our 20th anniversary. As close to love at first sight as it gets.”
As often happens with Champ’s stories, Mike’s story struck a chord with me. In 1963, after serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, I was discharged from the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Fallon, Nevada. I boarded a military flight in Fallon to the Bay Area, where I was to catch an American Airlines flight to Detroit, near where my parents and sisters lived in Jackson, Michigan.
The military flight was delayed, so I missed my AAL flight home. I rebooked an overnight flight from SFO to Detroit for that night. Like Mike’s story, I spent at least two hours on that flight talking with the stewardess (that’s what they were called then).
Her name was Linda. She was based in Chicago, and we dated for several months while I was at the University of Michigan Business School getting my MBA. To see each other, she would schedule flights with layovers in Detroit. I would pick her up in my rattle-trap ’57 Chevy at Detroit’s Metro Airport.
After graduation, I worked for AAL so we met often. She was, like Mike’s wife Kathie, a cutie. I clipped out a Fortune Magazine American Airlines advertisement in June 1965, because it reminded me of Linda.
Sixty-five years later, I have the original of that advertisement buried somewhere in my garage archives. I found a copy online, which is the photo above, entitled “People keep stealing our stewardesses.” I was one of those guys, sort of.
The small print in that ad reads, “Within two years, most of our stewardesses will leave us for other men. This isn’t surprising. A girl who can smile for 5 ½ hours is hard to find. Not to mention a wife who can remember what 124 people want for dinner…”
However, the relationship with Linda fizzled out due to long distance.
But, my infatuation with flight attendants didn’t end then; I married a Pan Am flight attendant four years later in NYC.
If there is a lesson to be learned from today’s eNewsletter –- and it’s a stretch, I admit — if you’re single and when you travel, strike up a conversation with flight attendants (now both women and men), train conductors, pilots, and other fellow travelers, you just might meet the love of your life. Mike’s story and my story are proof that love can happen at 30,000 feet.
Share with us how you met the love of your life while traveling.
On Life and Love after 50 