SPEAKER_02 0:14

Welcome to the Pan Am Podcast, brought to you by the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast and our museum are dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is the Panamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. This podcast is sponsored by the generous personal support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO and chairman of AMC Theaters. He is also president of our sister organization, the Pan Am Historical Foundation. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

In this episode, we are flipping the script. The interviewee becomes the interviewer. Hi, my name is Philip Keene, and I am asking, on behalf of all of us who work with him at the Pan Am Museum Foundation, that the host of the podcast, historian Tom Betty, submit to an interview so we can get to know and appreciate everything that Tom does. Now I serve with Tom on the board of the Pan Am Museum Foundation and have volunteered with him enough to know what questions to ask him. Don't be afraid, Tom, I didn't look you up on ChatGPT. We won't be making Earth-shattering news. But this particular podcast marks a milestone for the Pan Am Podcast as it becomes the 40th episode of our show and a terrific beginning for season three. As of this recording, the Pan Am Podcast has been downloaded over 107,000 times in 158 countries. The program has earned many awards, including the Gold 2023 Muse Creative Award, the Silver 2023 Vega Digital Award, and the Gold Award for the 2023 Here Now Palooza of the National Audio Theater Festivals. I can tell you, though Tom will not, that these honors reflect the diligence, hard work, and commitment Tom has displayed throughout his run, not to mention his ability to snag amazing guests and encouraging them to tell their stories. His job includes every aspect of production: host, content creator, researcher, editor, and even mixing the sound properly in post-production. Did I mention that he performs all these duties on a volunteer basis, donating his time and talent? Because that says something not only about his fascination with Pan Am, but also his generosity of spirit. Since its premiere, Tom has employed previous Pan Am podcasts to cover stories from the romantic era of the flying boats of the 1940s to the supersonic flights of the Concorde, from acts of heroism and humanitarian missions, White House press charters, and the building of New York's landmark Pan Am building in Manhattan. In addition, the program has revisited some difficult historical events, such as the hijackings of the 1970s and the dawn of global terrorism, the 1977 Tenerife Airport disaster, Pan Am's diversity in flight during the Civil Rights Era, the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, and the bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The Pan Am Podcast is a humanities program, chronicling all aspects of the company's history, not only in American aviation, but also its influences on the world, cultural, business, and yes, even more and peace. If you like what Tom is doing, consider making a donation of whatever you can afford. All funds raised go to the Pan Am Museum Foundation, helping us to keep our story alive and accurate. There's a link to donate online, or you can even donate through your phone by texting to the number 53555 and entering in all capital letters as one word, Pan Am Podcast. Again, to support this podcast, you can click the link in the episode description or text Pan Am Podcast with no spaces to the number 53555. Thank you for your consideration. Now, on to our interview with Tom Betty. So, Tom, I know from experience you are a Midwestern modist, but before we get back to Pan Am, I need to fulfill part of my mission today, which is helping our listeners get to know more about you than just as Tom Betty, the guy dedicated to this podcast. So let's start with where you went to college and with your degrees and what you studied.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

All right. Well, thank you very much, Philip. But I'd like to start with welcoming you back to the program. You've been on three different episodes covering a variety of topics, and you are the perfect example of ingenuity and unlimited energy of former Panam Flight attendants that I have been very fortunate to meet. And also, you went on to have a successful acting career, uh, playing Buzz Watson on The Closer and Major Crimes for 13 years, which is two TV shows and seven seasons each, which is a huge accomplishment.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Well, thanks. You know, and that too is history, but so don't deflect. I'm not even sure I know the answer to this question, but you were primarily a history student in your college days, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Well, when I was still in high school, I had this uh history teacher named uh Mr. Dixon, Kevin Dixon. He's still a friend of mine. And I always wanted to be kind of a history teacher, history professor. So I took another path and and and I dabbled in politics. And uh I grew up in the Cleveland area and I moved down to Columbus. And while I was doing uh political stuff, I wanted to grow up fast, which to our listeners that are of a younger age, uh, you know, enjoy your your teens and your early 20s. Um, I kind of wanted to be an adult really, really quick. I bought my first house when I was 21. Uh, so I didn't go the traditional college route. What I what I did is I went to a business school that was uh primarily for working adults. So I was doing that while doing political work. And then I when I received my uh double degree in business administration and organizational leadership from Franklin University, I went on to my advocacy work and public policy. But history has always been kind of a thread in my life. And, you know, I love every part about it. Even though I took a professional career track of advocacy, public policy, and government work, history was always there. So uh many years later, after I volunteered with Columbus Landmarks Foundation and started getting involved with the history community in Columbus, I went and I got my master's degree in history from Norwich University in Vermont. That's why I can call myself a historian. But really, you know, if I could make a living doing history, I certainly would be. But anyone with a history degree will tell you that it's very difficult to make a living doing history if you're not tenured at a university.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Now, I understand that you live in a bit of an historical building. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Sure. So I live in the Hartman Hotel building. It was built in 1898, and I was part of the team that put it on the National Register of Historic Places. Theod Roosevelt uh was one of the guests in this hotel, and also an Ohio governor lived in this hotel. Um, it was one of the grand hotels of the Gilded Age, and uh I just love it. I've lived here for many years. I was one of the early pioneers of downtown living in Columbus, Ohio. And I live here with my little puppy uh Roosevelt. Roosevelt is a black pug, and believe it or not, he has his own fan club here in Columbus. I got him during COVID lockdown, and he's been an absolute joy. I couldn't have asked for a better puppy. Sometimes when I travel, I love to take him along with me.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Any relation to the former presidents' families?

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Good question. Everyone always asks me when we talk about my dog, you know, is he named after Franklin or Teddy? And even though I love both of them very much, Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt, I love Eleanor even more. So even though he's a boy dog, he's named after Eleanor in the most flattering sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

That's cool. Nothing's ever easy with me. You know, there's always complexities to everything.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, you sound like an underachiever with all the all the degrees and all the the work you do outside of your regular job. So the Panama Museum Foundation isn't the only place you volunteer your time, is it, as a professional historian. You've lent your talents to other organizations, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yes, but let let me just rewind for a second about my degrees. I have very expensive pieces of paper that I'm still paying off on my wall. Um so so uh if somebody went to me and said, Hey, I want I'm thinking about getting a master's in history, I would say you need to get your head examined because it's it costs way more than than it needs to. But yes, so over the years I've been involved with many organizations, Columbus Landmarks Foundation. I served on the board for many years and also chaired the education committee. And I am uh currently very involved with the Columbus Metropolitan Library and WOSU Public Media, which is our local NPR station. And occasionally I get interviewed on their television programs, WOSU's television programs, and uh with the library, we are doing lots of different tours in the neighborhoods where the branches are located, and we're training the librarians to give these tours. So I feel like Doreen Yuha Sauer and I, and she is my historian mentor. You know, we've been doing these tours for many years, all different kinds of tours, downtown uh walking tours, neighborhood tours, tavern tours, ghost tours, all different kinds of tours and educational programming. And we we feel really, really good because we're passing that on to an institution that is training their librarians to give this content to future generations when we're gone. So I feel really, really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

And you should. You should also be proud of the books you've written. And I I've got three of them myself. And what are those books about?

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Can you want to share with our audience? Sure. So I've co-written five books with Doreen Yu Hosauer. The first book that we did was Historic Taverns of Columbus. And that kind of came from all the research we were doing for our tavern tours. And then somebody said, you know, this would make a really good book. So we just looked at each other and we're like, well, we already did the research. Let's just turn the whole tour into a book. So that's kind of how that came about. And then the second book that we wrote was On This Day in Columbus, uh, Ohio history. And that's kind of like an almanac. So there is a tidbit of history for every day of the week. Our third book that we wrote was Columbus Neighborhoods. The fourth book was Historic Hotels of Columbus. And then our most recent book that we completed during COVID was Forgotten Landmarks of Columbus. And you can purchase all of these on Amazon, or if you live in Ohio, you can find them at Barnes and Noble. Uh, and if you don't live in Ohio, you can probably just order it from Barnes and Noble and have it delivered to you, or on Amazon or History Press is the publisher. So you can always go on their website as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

But I'll bet you they're at the library too.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

And they're at the library, yes. We just had a really, really, really cool event at the library. They were celebrating their 150th anniversary and they had this book festival. And the book festival had all of these different authors from all over the country. And Doreen and I had a table and we were signing books, and I was just like amazed that all of these people were coming to hear our presentation and then standing in line to have our books uh autographed, which uh doesn't happen very, very often. So we uh we we felt a little out of place, but uh people loved our books and uh we sold a whole bunch of books um and supported the library, so it was a great event.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

That's fantastic, and it's always great to have your work appreciated like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

I got one more question about the books. Uh I know how much you work on this podcast and and all the research you have to do to bring it to the public. Is that informed by your writing? Uh I I know historians have to be extremely careful about sourcing. So do you need to do that for the podcast as well?

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Absolutely, yes. So when when you are getting a history degree, they just ingrain into you that you have to uh research everything, footnote everything, and there is a method to our madness. What I would like to say is historians, we are kind of trained in detective work. So we're kind of detectives. And sometimes it's very gratifying because you're working on this question and you're looking for the answer, you're going through all of these different archives, looking for different things, trying to connect different things. And then Eureka, when when you're able to solve the mystery, it is so uh energizing and is in need of celebration with alcohol afterwards, if that is your thing. Because it's just it's a huge high when you're able to solve these mysteries. So I like to call historians a form of detectives.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Well, it sounds really thorough.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yes. And and you know, it needs to be because like with the National Register nominations that I've co-written, uh, this is part of the official record of the United States government. You know, the podcast. You know, we are making these podcasts not only for the people that are listening today, but people that might may listen 20 years from now, trying to learn about what it was like to fly on Pan Am in the 20th century. So we should get it right. Now we're all human. Sometimes we make mistakes, just like everybody else. But when you follow that historiography and the rigorous drills that are drilled into you about uh research, then you know, you're doing your due dil diligence. Every once in a while, you know, everyone makes a mistake or gets a date wrong or or or misdates a building. I mean, it happens, but but really it's it's putting that effort, that extra effort in to make sure you got it right. If you don't have it right, then going back and correcting it.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Absolutely. I mean, and some of these uh original sources can be difficult to read at times given people's handwriting and things like this. Oh, yeah. So I I have another question for you. When you do your volunteer work, as an historian, has any of that ever overlapped? Have you ever been able to combine your interests in Pan Am and Columbus, for example?

SPEAKER_02 16:32

You know what? I'm trying to find um I'm trying to find connections. There's not a lot of connections to Pan Am in Columbus, Ohio. Pan Am did inherit National's station in Cleveland, Ohio. And then Delta has a big hub in Cincinnati, Ohio. But Columbus, Ohio, and Pan Am is elusive. But I did find a couple morsels of connection. Um, the wall clocks that Rolex made that were in all of the Pan Am offices around the world. There was probably a couple different companies that made those for Rolex. Rolex did not make the actual timepiece, but some of them were made here in Columbus, Ohio. There was a company here in Columbus, Ohio that made the electrical components to the Rolex wall clocks for Pan Am. And that is the only connection thus far that I have found to Columbus, Ohio. However, TWA in Columbus has a long history. So there's a lot more connections to TWA history in Columbus than Pan Am, aside from me living in Columbus and doing the Pan Am podcast. And then also Eastern Airlines has a long history with Columbus because uh the favorite son of Columbus, Eddie Rickenbacher, a World War I top ace, was born here and he went on to be the Eastern Airlines president for many years.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. Now I understand that there was that the library that you love so much hosted an aviation day, and that you did a little presentation and you actually built an airplane.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

I did not build an airplane. I think this is more of an interrogation than an interview, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Well, listen, it isn't how you take it. It's just dependent on how you on whether you cooperate or not, whether it's an interrogation or an interview.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

You've been on crime shows too long. Um, so we had a great event. It was Aviation and History Day at uh the Columbus Metropolitan Library. It started off with a Pan Am presentation. They gave me an hour and a half, and I had 30 people that showed up, which is fantastic. That's cool. Um, and we went through the Pan Am history presentation. I brought in my clipper class seats and some of my Pan Am artifacts and artwork that I hung on the wall. The kids would walk by and see this. Oh, that's an airline seat. That's so cool, it's so big. And then afterwards, they had a science presentation by one of the science museums here in Columbus. But the cool thing was the day uh ended with a paper airplane contest, and all of these kids built these paper airplanes, and there was a couple that had a Pan Am logo on them. And stupid me, I didn't take a picture of them. But uh the Pan Am Museum actually donated the bags for the prizes for the the paper airplane contest. So I am hard at work in Columbus, Ohio making that Pan Am connection, uh, even though the airline has not flown in 31 years. But uh, you know, people in Columbus, you know, I gave a presentation at the Grandview Public Library and uh the Worthington Historical uh group. So people in Columbus are are really interested in in Pan Am. I'd like to think that that has something to do with my prior work and my prior relationships, but uh it's certainly there. And yeah, that aviation day was fun. Uh, we're definitely going to do it again next year. For our listeners that do not live in Ohio, uh, we're trying to figure out a way that I can give this presentation virtually. A lot of the uh libraries that uh they're moving away from virtual events because they want people to come into the library um now that we're coming out of the pandemic era. So uh a lot of people have requested that we do we do some virtual uh presentations. So that's something that we are working on.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I think that that's terrific. Listen, um, I want to find out a little bit how you became involved with the Pan Am Museum Foundation. Now, so why don't we just start at the beginning? How did you become involved?

SPEAKER_02 20:42

How did I get interested in Pan Am or how did I get interested in the Pan Am Museum? Because those are two very different things.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

This is true. So let let me let me backtrack a little bit and and be more specific and ask, how did you get involved with the Pan Am Museum Foundation?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Okay. So during COVID, uh all of my friends, so I have Pan Am stuff around my house. Nothing like your collection, Philip, but I have been collecting Pan Am stuff. I have some artifacts, I have a window of a 707, um, which is kind of cool. It's kind of like this industrial art, I like to call it. And over the years, my friends would be like, What's with all this Pan Am stuff? And I would tell them this long story. They would always say, Oh, this is a great story. You should like write this somewhere and publish it. And during the pandemic, another friend came over and said, you know, what's with all this Pan Am stuff? So I would tell the story and they said, Uh, you really need to put this online. This is really a great story. And especially during lockdown, uh, no one has anything to do, and this is a great story. So I put it online and it went viral on all of the Pan Am, you know, groups. And I had Pan Am people from all over sending me pictures. Uh, is this the plane that you were? On? Do you recognize these crews? Um, you know, do you recognize me? And it was like stunning. Like all of a sudden, overnight, I had all of these new friends. And one of the people that reached out was Deborah, the social media manager of the Pan Am Museum, and also our fellow board member. And she started talking to me. And she realized that, you know, I have a history background and that I've done all this history stuff. So she introduced me to Linda Frere, the board chair, and she started asking me questions. And she said, Hey, we really need your help. At first, it was like an advisory kind of thing. And then they asked me to join the board, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

So, Tom, tell me about your Pan Am story. What do you have to share with us?

SPEAKER_02 22:48

So my Pan Am story kind of starts off at birth. My uncle was a pilot and he was very, very interested in aviation, obviously. And growing up, you know, even when I was a baby, I had these like model airplanes, uh, you know, these Fisher Price, you know, toys. So airplanes have always fascinated me since I was uh a little kid. My first real air show was in 1985. My uh father took me to the Cleveland air show and the Concord was there. I just was just fascinated by this thing. It looked like some kind of crane bird, just such an interesting aircraft. And I tell you this because it connects with uh the Pan Am stuff later. But really, my my Pan Am story begins with James Bond. I've always loved James Bond movies, and my uncle was working for Eastern Airlines in 1991. Uh January of 1991, Eastern Airlines went out of business around the same time Pan Am filed for bankruptcy, uh, but was still flying. And my uncle was out of a job. And one of his friends uh that worked for Pan Am in the Cleveland station said, you know, we're going through our own bankruptcy, but I was wondering if you can help me around the station uh off the books, which is probably against company policy at the time, but you know, and she said, uh, I can't pay you, but I can give you travel vouchers and you can fly anywhere in the world. Uh and I can give you six of them for your whole family. So my grandmother, my mom and dad, and my little sister and I, and my uncle. So with that, we decided to spend uh the summer in southern Italy in 1991. I should point out, I come from a very modest middle class family. My dad is a retired firefighter, and my mom, uncle, and their parents, my grandparents, came to the United States in 1963 from Italy. So when I say I spent the summer in southern Italy as a kid, it's not as fancy as it sounds. We actually stayed uh in my mom's hometown with relatives just outside of a town called Caserta, which is just north of Naples. Anyway, we were preparing to, you know, disembark on this great adventure. Uh and my parents made a critical error. And I was I was 11 at the time. They made a critical error because I didn't wear my suit since the previous summer. So we were 4:30 in the morning getting ready to uh get on an early flight because we needed to get to New York early, even though all of the flights left in the evenings. Uh, we want we wanted to get there early, but because we were flying standby. And uh as you know, when you fly standby, you have to be dressed to the nines in full suit tie. And that that's for young people as well. So here I am getting ready, uh, 4 30 in the morning, and my dress shoes don't fit. And my parents, it was pandemonium in the Betty household that morning. The stores obviously didn't open and there was nothing we could do, and I had to wear my white Converse tennis shoes, which who knows, maybe I started a trend. Um, so here we are walking to check in. My parents and my uncle are mortified. They don't think we're gonna get on the plane because of my tennis shoes. And the ticket agent looks down. Oh, isn't that cute? This boy has tennis shoes and a suit. Um, and they thought that, oh, this is the end. And, you know, instead, they're they didn't care. And, you know, we got on the plane. But we had the whole day at uh the world port, just sitting there the whole day. It was so boring. And I was like, you know, finally, and nobody was around either. And finally I was just like, I'm just gonna explore. And my parents are like, Well, don't go too too far and don't go outside. So I'm exploring, you know, kind of looking at this architecture, trying to take it all in. And I walk out the front door down the ramp of the world port, and I turn around and I'm looking, and I and I said to myself, I recognize this. Where do I recognize this from? And then it came to me, live and let die, uh, Roger Moore is James Bond walking out of the world port right in front of me. And then I'm like, wait a second, we're flying on Pan Am, Pan American. This is James Bond's airline. So I ran back to my parents and I told them, and of course nobody cared, but all day I'm like, oh wow, we're flying on Pan Am. Uh, and and it it it clicked. For whatever reason, it didn't click until then. And I'm looking around and I'm like, yeah, this is totally where Roger Moore was. And to make a long story short, so we boarded to go to Rome that evening and it was a full flight. I remember walking onto the 747 for the first time and immediately thought that I was part of something very, very special. Uh just the size of the plane. I mean, it was amazing, huge. Uh, you know, for for a little kid looking up at this building, flying building, um, it was absolutely huge. And I just knew that it was very special. And uh, my family and I were scattered all over the cabin. And I was sit, I was seated at the very back on the right side, the very last seat in the smoking section. And it was terrible. There was like this haze. It was just, oh my God, I I still can't, I still remember like it it was just the the smoke, you could like cut it with a knife. Uh and there was this gentleman sitting next to me in a suit, and he said, uh, you know, are you feeling okay? And I said, Yeah, you know, not not not really. And he said, uh, is it the smoke? And I said, Yeah, it's the smoke. He's like, Me too. So then he started talking to me, you know, where where where do you go to school? How old are you? Oh, my son, you know, is is much older than you, but you know, he liked Star Wars or whatever we talked about. And then he he asked me the question that most people ask young people, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I had James Bond on the mind. And I and I was thinking to myself, well, I can't say I want to be in the British Secret Service because I'm an American. So I'm going to tell this guy I want to be in the US Secret Service. So I said, I want to be in the United States Secret Service. And he looked at me just for a few a brief moment, just looked at me, and then he kind of, you know, winked, and then he pulls out his badge from his lapel and he said, I'm in the U.S. Secret Service. And my mind was blown. Wow. On Panam, sitting next to a secret agent. And the whole way there, we just talked about everything. He started with Lyndon Johnson, uh, and he knew the Nixons well. He worked for President Ford, uh, and President Carter and President Reagan. And now he was working for President uh H.W. Bush, who was flying to Europe uh a few weeks later, and he was part of the advanced team. Just mind-blown uh with this guy. And then, you know, the the flight attendants kept walking by and they kept winking at me. And uh they probably knew who he was. Uh, and then I asked him, you know, are you carrying a gun? And he says, Well, if I was, I couldn't tell you. So I don't know if he was carrying a gun or not, probably not. But it was just so cool. And then one of the flight attendants, when we were coming in for uh landing, she she came to me and she said, I just spoke to your mom, and I just want to let you know when you get off the airplane, when we get to Rome, don't be afraid because you will see all of these soldiers. Now, you know, keep in mind, you know, 1991, in an average American boy did not see what we see today in regards to security, uh, especially if you traveled uh in the in the United States. And the only other trip that I traveled at that time was uh my first plane that I flew on was a DC 9 Eastern to uh Orlando when I was when I was a kid. And sure enough, we get off this plane and there were sandbags and machine guns. And I'm so glad that she gave me a heads up because uh that that's very unusual for an American boy to see. Um it was a jarring thing. So I'll save the the uh summer in Italy for another time, but coming back two months later or so, it was a open flight. I had my uh Italian dress shoes, proper Italian dress shoes at that time. And we go to check in, and the the ticket agent said, wherever you want to sit, it's an open flight. I said, Well, I I where where do you want us to sit? And she said, Do you want to sit upstairs? I said, Do I want to sit upstairs? Of course, that would be wonderful. So she put me in clipper class upstairs on a 747-200 series. I was very fortunate growing up because my mom's from Italy and I had this Italian home cooked meals pretty much every night. But we really didn't go out to eat outside of you know McDonald's and maybe a Chinese place from time to time. So I never experienced other kinds of cuisines. So this is when my tastes that would evolve that do not meet my salary kind of began because the service was extraordinary. And I tasted this French food that I've never tasted before. Um, I still remember it was some kind of scallops, and there was, you know, desserts and uh these cheeses. And that's when my love affair with Pan Am really began as an 11-year-old treated like a prince on the upper deck of a 747 in Clipper class. And really, we had one flight attendant, and there was like four people up there, and she just, you know, whatever I wanted, she would talk to me, she would bring me, you know, whatever soft drink I wanted. And she's like, Do you like Coke or Pepsi? We have both. Um, and I said, I would love a Coca-Cola. So, you know, that's kind of when my love affair of Pan Am began, and that's the story that I posted online.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Now I want to ask a few more questions about you, Tom. Is that okay? Yeah, that's okay. Okay. Just shifting gears for a quick second here. I just want to do a quick little lightning round just to kind of switch things up for just a quick second. So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you just a series of really quick questions, and you've got to pop them out as soon as you can. So what are your what are your three favorite movies?

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Uh in my particular order, just top. Okay, so Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan, Citizen Kane, and Sunset Boulevard.

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Wonderful. So the next one I've got for you, your favorite television shows other than closer major crimes, because I know those have to be your favorite. So what are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 34:30

They are. Um let's see. I can't give you three, but I can give you five or six. Um Star Trek Deep Space Nine, The West Wing, The Green Hornet, and Mission Impossible.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Right. How about favorite food?

SPEAKER_02 34:48

Uh Indian, French, Italian.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Fantastic. How about um let me see here. Uh, favorite kind of music. People can be so judgy about this.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Uh, you know, I am so eclectic. I like all kinds of music. I would say big band jazz, um, classical, and alternative rock.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Okay. Now you have a link to a particular song, do you not? Is it my am I writing thing? Is it a Billy Joel?

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Yes. So when I was young, my parents bought me this little cassette tape, and it was Billy Joel, it was a single. Just came out. Must have been 1989, I think. Um so I was nine years old at the time. And I was al already very interested in history. Uh a few years before that, my my parents bought me this uh old encyclopedia set they got at a garage sale that was, you know, probably 15 years old. And I just flipped through that thing like crazy. But this particular cassette tape was a new single that just came out, We Didn't Start the Fire. And I listened to that song constantly on on, you know, the little cassette tape would play, and then you would rewind it and play it again and rewind it and play it again. I know it's a concept that is foreign to some of our younger listeners that might be listening, but I kind of wore worn out this little cassette tape.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Um quick question Did you ever stick a pencil in the little reels and have it? Totally.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

You know, sometimes you know, it get, you know, the stuff would get out, and you know, it it was kind of a mess. The little tape would get out, um, and you had to to do that. But back then, when and there was no internet back then, in the cassette tape was also the lyrics, this little thing that would fold out and it would have all the lyrics. And I knew it was about history, but I didn't know what some of these lyrics meant. So I looked up as a young person, I looked up every lyric in that song to understand what he was talking about. So I was obsessed with this song for many years. And and really, when I give some history talks, I I use it and I play it. I play I play this song, and then I also have this thing I found on YouTube where it shows pictures of all the things that he's talking about. And it's it's a great, you know, this his this boring history guy that I thought was gonna give this presentation, you know, pulled out this rock song. Uh, and and they get really engaged when when I start talking about history. Because most people, uh, I shouldn't say most people, but a lot of people, you know, they they look at history. They probably had uh they weren't fortunate enough to have a uh teacher like I did in in high school. And it's all about dates and wars, and people are just like, okay, this is boring. But really, it's about people's, you know, it's about real people and their stories and how complicated and complex these people were. Um, you know, we all have a story. So yeah, We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel is certainly one of my favorite songs because it really got me really interested in history. And like I said, I looked up every single thing in those lyrics because every lyric means something, and it's also in a certain order, too. Um, so it's chronological, which which is is is great in itself. You know what, Philip? Let's just go ahead and play that song. It's four minutes, it starts with 1948 and President Truman. This is the year Billy Joel was born, and it ends in the late 1980s when the song was released. It's a great learning tool. And if I were a high school teacher, I would tell my students to listen to the song and pick any one of the subjects to write a report about it. Let's have a listen. A podcast about Pan Am just played a rock song about history. We can make anything work at the Pan Am Museum. I'll put a link to the video I use for my history talks in the episode description. Check it out.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

That's great. So your beginnings with the Pan Amuse Museum um might be interesting from the perspective of can you tell me a little bit about how you look at the beginnings of the company of Pan Am maybe a little more differently than a normal person would because of your historical your your degree, your your background. So just a normal person walking through through the museum might see uh a set of plates or uh a uniform. How do you look at these exhibits differently than say the average person?

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Multifaceted with different kinds of interests uh mixed in. Uh one of the things when I joined the museum that I would ask the question, what kind of museum is this? And one of our colleagues said, Well, we're an aviation museum. And I said, Are we? You know, are we an aviation museum? Well, of course we are. What why wouldn't we be? And I said, well, I would like to think that we're a Pan Am museum because Pan Am history is more than just aviation. We can talk about the range of a 747 jet or an L1011. We can talk about the height and weight requirements of flight attendants. We can talk about the engines of airplanes. We can talk about seat configuration. Sure, that's all aviation history. But Pan Am history is more than just aviation history. It covers a lot of different disciplines: military history, cultural history, world history, Cold War history, all different kinds. So what I like to tell people is the Pan Am Museum is not solely an aviation museum. This podcast is not an aviation podcast. You can say that it's partly an aviation podcast, but really uh this podcast is a history and humanities podcast because it covers the multifaceted history of Pan Am and it also covers the humanities part, real people telling their stories. I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

That's true. You know, I asked that question because I do think your view on these subjects is professional and informed, but it's it's also personal. You know, for instance, looking for lost or forgotten landmarks and then covering their value or how they came to be there in the first place. So I I want to ask you a couple questions about that. Of course. One is is why is doing this so important to you and why is it important historically? I know you've touched on this before, but are there anything specifically that that we can point to in your opinion? Sure. And if not, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

No, I I have a good analogy that I will share with you. So one of the things that we Doreen and I have talked about in our our combined history work, and we've been working together, God, almost 20 years together. Since you were a baby. Yeah, I guess so. Um is, you know, so why should we care about these old buildings? And a brick is just a brick if it doesn't have a story. When it has a story, then it becomes something important and something that should be saved. If we don't have a good story to attach to these buildings, they're not meaningful. They they don't have that connection. So I like to say, you know, a brick is just a brick without a story, and the story is very important. So it's context. It's it's all about context, and it's all about telling the stories of that building and the people that are attached to that building, the people that worked in this hotel, the people that built the hotel, the people that ran the hotel, uh, the people that had affairs in the hotels, or met the love of their life in the hotel, or honeymoon in the hotel. It all has different, different stories that combined make it a historically significant structure. And sometimes people don't see that. You walk around New York City, for instance, and a lot of people don't look up from their cell phones and look at the architecture that's at the top of the buildings. Some of those buildings are just extravagant architecture that are all very intricately decorated at the top, but people don't see that because they're focused, you know, on the ground level and probably looking at their phones and not walking in anybody. My advice to people is to stop and admire the structure. What is the architect trying to tell you? What was going on at that time? For instance, a lot of the buildings that were built in the late 1890s and the turn of the 20th century, 1900s, have exposed light bulbs. Well, why is that? Uh, what's the story behind that? Well, the story behind that is electricity was in its infancy at that time, and they wanted to show off that they had light bulbs and electricity. Uh, so the light bulbs were part of the architecture, but a lot of the buildings of that era, they wanted to show off that architecture. So that's why you have those exposed light bulbs. And then also, you know, when you see fireproof on different things, for instance, there's a hotel in Columbus. It's now called the Western Columbus. It's the uh oldest historic hotel that we have, the only historic hotel that we have in Columbus built in 1897. But Columbus was not immune to these devastating fires that would happen all over the place. And a lot of them started in hotels or tenements or apartment buildings because everyone smoked and everyone smoked in bed. You know, you accidentally light the hotel on fire because you fell asleep in bed with a cigarette in your hand. So, you know, in the late 1890s, 1880s, you hear about these devastating fires. So they came up with new construction techniques that were called fireproof. And they wanted to advertise the great Southern Fireproof Hotel, for instance, that this building is built of a material called concrete and it's fireproof. So this building is not going to go up in flames. So, you know, again, when when you're you're kind of walking around different cities when you're traveling, um, you know, it's that curiosity, that intellectual curiosity of, you know, why is this called this way? Why was it built this way? And, you know, that's something that I can see in Pan Am that they always had that intellectual curiosity. Where should we go next? How do we get there? Okay, so you think I'm crazy, I want to cross the Pacific Ocean. How do we do it? Well, we can find some islands in the Pacific. All right, so now we found the islands. So how do we get there? Uh, well, we need to build a plane that that could have these kinds of engines that could go this kind of range. You know, that's that intellectual curiosity that I felt that Pan Am was always a pioneer with. And that's part of the many connections that I have with Pan Am that I feel, and and you can you can also feel it in all of the employees that that I've come to know. And fortunately, I have created many friendships that I just treasure because of this great project, this passion project of mine. But it's that intellectual curiosity, I think. What is the meaning here? What what is yeah, what is someone that built this building? What are they trying to tell me? Uh, why is it designed this way? That that's what really fascinates me about architecture and history. And and you can't have architecture without history, and you can have history without architecture. Some architects that I've met said, oh no, they're two separate things. I disagree. I think that they're intertwined.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

Well, I I agree with you as well, Tom. That that's a that's a great answer. But so what do you do for fun or for relaxation, besides, you know, taking Roosevelt out for a walk and while he's looking for a place to pee? I mean, what what else is going on in your world? Well, I didn't mention that George Lucas is in your uh in your universe there.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

Well, Philip, I think everyone should have a passion project outside of their professional careers and jobs. I believe passion projects are good for the soul. Find something you're really interested in, however obscure, and pursue it. Either it be painting, music, volunteering at a homeless kitchen, book club, cooking lessons, whatever. Find something you're really interested in that brings you joy and pursue it, no matter how weird it is. Passion projects open the door to meeting new people with similar interests and making new meaningful connections. I can't stress how important I believe having a passion project is. I'm fortunate to say that I've always found the importance of passion projects and volunteering throughout my life. And today I shuffle around my time with three passion projects. The first is and has been for many years, Columbus History, doing educational programming, writing books, giving tours, and so forth. My second passion project is obviously Pan Am and the work we are doing with the Pan Am Museum Foundation and this podcast, preserving the legacy of this great airline and sharing the incredible history of it. Now, my third passion project may surprise our listeners, and I'll admit it's from another galaxy, but it's so much fun, and we get to give it back to the community and put a smile on a sick kid's face. So, George Lucas, so um I love Star Wars. I've loved Star Wars since I was a baby. I grew up in the 80s, so uh, you know, it was it was it was always surrounding me, Star Wars. So my third passion project is being a member of a worldwide nonprofit organization called the 501st Legion. The 501st is a Lucasfilm-affiliated Star Wars costuming group. All of our costumes are from the Star Wars movies and TV shows, and they must go through a rigorous approval process to ensure that everything you see in real life is 100% screen accurate. So, meaning, you know, if Disney wanted to film us tomorrow, we would fit right into the movie. We make free of charge appearances in our screen accurate costumes to many nonprofit organizations, such as children's hospitals, museums, hospice centers, libraries, just, you know, just to name a few. Uh the 501st website is 501st.com. And it's just a great group of people. Uh, I have three costumes right now. Um, my first costume, and this kind of ties into Panam a little bit, uh, because everyone asks me all the time, are you a pilot? And I said, Well, not technically, but in a galaxy far, far away. So my first costume is a TIE fighter pilot. And then I recently got a stormtrooper, uh, the iconic Star Wars stormtrooper. And then I have an officer uniform. And next year I'm going to be doing uh Admiral Akbar. I have to pace myself a little bit because this stuff is really expensive, but it's a lot of fun. Uh, we did the Columbus Symphony, we did uh all of the major league sports games here in Columbus. The organization uh 501 is uh a worldwide organization, and we have about 17,000 members worldwide. We like to say bad guys doing good because we do all of this for charity. We're not allowed to accept any money whatsoever. And for certain organizations, we're there to raise money for those organizations.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Most impressive.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Yeah, it's a great way to give back and have fun. And uh I'll I'll tell you, Philip, that when I when we go to children's hospitals and see these sick kids, um, I am so fortunate to have the helmet on because I am just crying underneath this helmet. Just to see their their faces just light up, you know, seeing Darth Vader and some stormtroopers walk in their room is just it's so rewarding. And, you know, some of our listeners are like, oh well, that's kind of weird that this, you know, grown man dresses up in Star Wars and you know walks around. But really, when you see these kids and and they they just light up. Uh and they like the bad guys, by the way. Um, so you know, some some Jedi can be there, you know, before us. But when Darth Vader walks in with the music, um, they just go nuts. And they everyone wants your picture. You know, we get mobbed when we go to different events. At certain points, I mean, we're just standing there and people are just taking pictures left and right. You know, it's like an assembly line. And I have the helmet on. Sometimes I just close my eyes and take a nap.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

That's that's amazing to be able to embody another another character, if you will. And then just your very presence puts a smile on somebody's face and and maybe makes them forget about what it is, the the bad things or the challenging things that they're going through in their life. That that's that's fantastic to be able to volunteer in your time and make that make that that difference.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

Again, like Pan Am, I have met some incredible people from all walks of life. Uh, for instance, you know, two of my squad mates here in Columbus, our squad is called Arch City Squad. Justin has a podcast. Um, it's called the Outer Rim Beacon Podcast. It's a Star Wars podcast, obviously. My other teammate, uh Emily, she has a podcast about the life and legacy of an essential figure in American Catholic history. The podcast is called Meet Father Rivers. So again, everyone has a story. The one thing in all of my work, you know, my my passion projects, my history work, uh, and and my real work, my career, everyone has a story. And it's just really interesting to meet all different kinds of people and learn their stories. Yeah, the Star Wars group has been a lot of fun. It's been a great distraction at times, and it's giving back to the community. So I'm for that.

SPEAKER_01 57:28

That's a great thing. Okay. So now, do you have a favorite place that you've traveled and and and why would it be your favorite place?

SPEAKER_02 57:36

I love London. I when I was a uh a teenager, I was part of a student ambassador program, and I was fortunate enough to go to London uh for a couple weeks in the summer. And I have many friends in London and Greenwich. Um, some of my London friends that are listening. So my mom was born in Italy, and I got my dual citizenship for the specific purpose of moving to London at some time, uh, but that was before Brexit. If there's one place in the world that I wish I lived, and you know, maybe I'll move there someday, uh, would be London. There's something about London that that's always spoken to me. Perhaps it's because I love Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. So perhaps that that's part of it, but there's something, something about London that that uh I don't believe in superstition and past lives and those things, but I have this weird connection to London. Can't explain it.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

Yeah, I agree with you. I I that's where I was based when I first uh was hired with Pan Am. And and I think what you just described might be part of what was uh Pan Am's Allure, why it became such an important company. Not just because of the marketing, which was sexy and glamorous and sophisticated, but because it delivered people to places where they could experience life differently. I I mean, you know, it did that for me.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

Yeah. I mean, and that's the the beauty of of air travel today. I mean, we can go different places where it would take a week by steamship to go to London to New York, um, you know, at the turn of the century, uh, the 20th century, that is. And then, you know, if you wanted to go to Hong Kong or India, you know, that would be like a two-month, you know, adventure. Uh, now we can get to India in 24 hours, depending on your connections. Australia, New Zealand, I mean, those places used to be very remote. And I think, you know, this is where Pan Am needs credit in a lot of different areas, but the advent of commercial aviation, so that's where Pan Am really has its mark and history. That history needs to be shared. And that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Is there anything else that we should we should touch on before we before we end our podcast today?

SPEAKER_02 59:56

As we near the end of this interview, I just would like to say thank you to all of our dedicated listeners around the world. Doing this work is an honor, and I'm so happy to have met and continue meeting Pan Am people from all walks of life that I now consider my second family. And there's always a Pan Am connection to everything, even in Ohio. It's amazing how we're we are all connected. For me, this has all been a little weird in a very good way, and it's like the universe is at work matching all of these connections and making all of these things connect. Um, here's a crazy example of many in regards to the the Pan Am coincidences all over the world and and now all over my life. Um, remember early early on in this interview, I was talking about going to the Cleveland air show when I was five and being mesmerized by the Concord. With this podcast, I interviewed Captain Bannister, the chief Concord pilot for British Airways. Uh, I think it was in episode 19. Um, and I told him my story about this little boy being in an awe of seeing this incredible plane in Cleveland. Turns out he was there and he was flying it. So, you know, 30 years later, I'm talking to the guy, actually more than 30 years, um, I'm talking to the guy that was flying the plane that I saw as a kid. These these kind of strange connections uh like this with almost all of the Pan Am people I meet and the Pan Am stories, it's it's just it's awesome, and I'm just honored to share these stories.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

You know, as you say, Pan Am has uh has adopted you into this family, and that's that's uh that's part of the the the allure of this company, at least for me anyway. It it changed my life in so many ways, and it gave me uh focus and it opened my eyes to new experiences. And there are so many similarities between your story and mine, even though uh I am a great deal older than you.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

Now not by much though.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

Well, I I feel it sometimes, but I mean just down to the idea of being exposed to different cuisine and and how this job that I just happened to fall fall into uh changed the course of my life. And I think that's uh the case for so many people who who joined Pan Am. It opened their eyes to the rest of the world and just changed the trajectory of their lives, as did the the company itself with with with the United States. I mean, you know, taking Americans overseas and bringing overseas back to America and the exchange of cultures and ideas, I think opened a lot of people's eyes and probably for the better.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

Yeah. Definitely. As we're almost done, I'd like to share a quote that I use in my history talks from one of my favorite authors, the late David McCullough. Here it is. History is not about dates and quotes and obscure provisos. History is about life, about change, about consequences, about cause and effect. It's about the mystery of human nature, the mystery of time. And it isn't just about politics, the military, and social issues, which is almost always the way it's taught. It's about music and poetry and drama and science and medicine and money and love. I think that sums up why history should be important to all of us. I've been asked in the past, uh, what period of history is my favorite to study? For me, I would have to say 20th century history without a doubt. Uh, every once in a while, usually from some highbrow academics, uh, someone scowls and peppers me with questions. What about the Greek and Roman Empires, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, uh, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War? And I would say, sure, those are all very significant. But what other period of human history had two world wars, incredible advancements in technologies such as aviation and the automobile in a very condensed time frame? Civil rights, political turmoil, the jet age, the space race, the moon landing, computers, the internet, and to top it all off, and perhaps more, and what other period in human history where man harnessed the power to destroy each other's enemies and the entire world? The Cold War was an incredible period because that threat almost became a reality on several occasions by just a hair trigger. The stakes were and are today enormous with nuclear weapons. That's why I think the 20th century is one of the most important periods and one of the most interesting periods to study and understand. It's a fascinating time in history to be alive. We should all be interested in what happened in history and getting those details right. And I look at history as storytelling. Uh, history is a story, and in that story, there's a lot of conflict, there's a lot of love, there's a lot of hate, there's a lot of innovation, there's a lot of death. History is multifaceted. It tells, it tells this very complex, complicated story. So the fight against nature to get us in the air in the first place, the the fight against people who didn't want humans to take flight, uh, the struggle to find the right kind of plane and the expense that was incurred in building them, the risky expense of it all uh from a business standpoint, the onset of terrorism and this new form of social piracy, uh, where instead of stealing treasure, people are stealing the possibility to connect with one another, prohibiting cultures from interacting for various reasons. Pan Am was there during all of that. And Pan Am provides a Great lens through which to examine this very important period of uh not only American history, but world history. It's a fantastic prism as it allows you to refract that period through the company's timeline. In a way, what I'm doing is the biography of travel in the 20th century and how it impacts the way we look at the world today. That that's what I think. Uh, you know, that kind of sums up what you and I are doing in our work on the board and what we're doing with the work on on this podcast is it's storytelling, um, but it's it's more important than just telling a story, it's the context to that story. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

Well, Tom, I thank you for letting me uh share in this. And uh this has been uh another adventure, another trip, and it's it's been a great one.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:01

I have to say, I'm I'm not usually uh used to being the center of attention. So you you've certainly flipped the script and turned the tables on me, and the uh interviewer becomes the interviewee or the victim of sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Well, it's a bit of an interrogation, so there we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:22

Well, thank you, Philip. I look forward to seeing you again. My very best to James and thank you for all of the work that you've done for the Pantia Museum. And it's it's just a wild ride, and and I'm so honored to be your history partner in all of this and working together to preserve this legacy.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Well, back at you, buddy. I really appreciate you too and and all the work that you do. And it's this has been uh just the beginning. Well, there's more to come.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepan Amuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by shopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am