SPEAKER_03 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 Pan Am Museum.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. Florette H. Vassal was born in New York City, the daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Panama. Aviation was a constant in her life from the very beginning. Her father was passionate about flight, and as a young girl, Florette would watch Pan Am's famous flying boats from the roof of her apartment building. Those magnificent aircraft crossing the sky above New York City made an impression that would last a lifetime. Then the war came. During World War II, her father was drafted into the Army and assigned as an air traffic controller because of his background in radio. And her mother served as an officially designated air raid warden. Those years brought challenges that went well beyond the war itself, and she will share those stories in the interview. In 1967, after returning to New York, she was looking for a job that came with travel benefits so she could visit friends she had made while living in Mexico. Pan American World Airways hired her. Perhaps it was not entirely a coincidence. What started as a practical decision became a 24-year career. Florette worked as a ticket agent, trainer, supervisor at the Pan Am Building in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, right up until the airline shut down in December of 1991. The Pan Am Building was no ordinary office address. Constructed between 1960 and 1963, the 59-story tower rising above Grand Central Station was, when it opened on March 7, 1963, the largest commercial office space in the world by Square Footage. Pan Am founder Juan T. Tripp had signed a 25-year lease for 613,000 square feet, and the airline occupied 15 floors. Listeners who heard episode 10 will recall the late Richard Roth Jr., the grandson of Emory Roth, the prolific New York City architect who designed many of the city's most celebrated buildings in the 1920s and 1930s. Richard was a young architect, fresh out of school when the Pan Am Building Project landed on his desk. He joined the family firm, Emory Roth and Sons, and worked alongside the building's celebrated designers, Walter Gropius and Pietro Beluski, to bring one of the most ambitious construction projects in New York City history to life. Richard passed away in late 2022 at the age of 89, just one year after sharing his remarkable firsthand account with this program. If you have not heard that episode, episode 10, I encourage you to go back and listen. What made the building remarkable was not just its scale, the lobby connected directly to Grand Central Station by escalator. Commuters ascending from the trains below found themselves walking through one of the most international environments in New York City at the time, past restaurants like Zum Zum, Charlie Brown's, and the Italian Tratatora, before emerging into a space that announced, in no uncertain terms, that the world was accessible from this address. At the heart of it all was Counter Vanderbilt, known to everyone who worked there simply as C V, the largest ticket counter in the world at the time. Modern, bright, and open, with a curved white plaster wall featuring a sculpted relief of the world map with Pan Am destinations marked in small pink lights, CV was where Florette worked. For more than two decades, Florette was a fixture at that counter. Customers, employees, company visitors, special guests, and board members all knew her by name. She was, by any measure, a legend. In 1970, Pan Am displayed a full mock-up of an interior compartment of the new 747 wide-body aircraft at the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance to the lobby. The opening day reception was hosted by uniformed ticket agents and flight attendants. One of the speakers was Charles Lindbergh. Florette was working at Counter Vanderbilt that year. It was also where, in 1980, she and Diane first met, and where a friendship began that has lasted more than four decades. Florette is a retired teacher, a former model, and an actress. For more than 40 years, she has produced multicultural arts and cultural programming for public television in New York City. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Fordham University. She is the author of the chapter titled The Pan Am Building and the book titled Pan Am Personal Tributes to a Global Aviation Pioneer, compiled by Jeff Krindler and James Patrick Baldwin. And at 91 years young, she has never stopped. Diane Crumholt's lyrics began her Pan Am career on January 24, 1977, hired as a clerk stenographer in labor relations. She went on to work in reservations as a sales agent, then as a sales account manager serving the White Plains and Long Island markets, before returning to the Pan Am building as a manager of administration for the Northeast Division, and ultimately as a manager of administration for the United States Division. Like Florette, she was there in the final year of the airline, leaving in August 1991. Diane is also a fellow board member of the Pan Am Museum Foundation, where she and I have served together for the last five years. Listeners who heard episode 27 will remember Diane from one of the most difficult chapters in Pan Am's history. On September 5th, 1986, Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked on the ground in Karachi, Pakistan, in an act of senseless violence that left 20 people dead and more than 100 people injured. Diane Krumholt's Lyrics, then of White Plains Pan Am Sales Office, was sent to Karachi as part of the company's crisis response team to assist staff and families in the aftermath. If you have not heard that episode, episode 27, I encourage you to go back and listen. Diane and Florette are still friends today. It's my great pleasure to introduce to the program Florette and also to welcome back Diane. Diane was a guest on episode 27 about the Karachi hijacking in 1986. Great to be back. But today we have a more lighthearted topic, and that is how Florette started with Pan Am in 1967, and then Diane joined Pan Am in 1977, and they have been friends ever since they met. Florette, why don't we start at the beginning when you joined Pan Am? Take us back.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

I began with Pan Am in 1967 because I had been living in Mexico in Acapulco. And while I was living there, I got a lot of visits from the staff of Eastern Airlines and American Airlines. And I noticed that they kept visiting me, and it wasn't even a year, and like eight times they had been there. And I said, Well, you know, how do you do this? You uh it's not even a year, and you've been here about eight times. And they said, We get passes. Anyway, later on, about a year later, I had to come back to New York because of my father's illness. And I had to just move back to New York. And my on the flight, my question was, uh, what am I going to do? Should I go back to teaching? Should I go back to modeling? Uh, and then I remembered those visitors. So I called one of them and I said, Um, what was the title of your position? And he said, Ticket agent. And I said, Well, that's the job I want. And he said, Well, Pan Am gives the test every Thursday. And you speak a couple of languages. Why don't you start with Pan Am? And that's what happened. Jim Reed interviewed me, and he mentioned that I see on your application that you went to St. John's University. He said, I used to teach at St. John's, and he opens his drawer and he pulls out a book and says, This is the book I wrote while I was teaching at St. John's. And of course, after that, since I was fully qualified, the rest is history. That's all I can tell you. 24 wonderful years at Pan Am.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

I have lots of questions for you, Florette, but uh let's talk to Diane for a moment, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about your modeling career, your parents, your childhood, and then your Pan Am story. Diane, why don't we ask you to introduce, reintroduce yourself to our listeners? When did you start with Pan Am?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Well, so nice to be back. Thank you for having me. I started back in the Pan Am building on January 24th, 1977, in labor relations. Actually, I was hired by Mary Lyons. Do you remember her? Yes. I was hired by her in the lobby as a clerk stenographer, which was very interesting. So I worked in labor relations and I used to handle uh the library files and collective bargaining agreements, and I helped with typing up all the craft negotiations. It was so exciting. It was really truly exciting. But I was 19 years old. Uh I think um it must have been in junior high school, someone must have sent a uh, you know, when they introduce you to different careers, and I must have seen an airline come in. And I'm and I from that day on, I always said, I'm going to work for an airline. I'm going to work for an airline. Well, when I went to uh high school, I went to high school in the Bronx. I'm a Bronx girl as well, born and raised all my life there. And I went to vocational high school. And so I became a stenographer and typist and secretary. Well, when I got out of school, there were no jobs really available at the time. But life is so funny how it puts you on the path. I wound up going to a reinsurance company, it was a marine department on Third Avenue. And I decided to leave there to go cross country. And before I did, I was asked by personnel to come back. And I said, no, I want to go work for an airline. So they asked me, uh, why don't you speak to the Reed brothers? These it was RBH, Reed and Carr. And the Reed Brothers, his sister was married to Charlie Tripp. So uh that was a big coincidence, huh? And um, so when I left, you know, I just kept writing to him and sending my resume, and there was nothing available at the time. And just to back up, in the same building we had TWA. Well, I went for an interview, got the job, and I just, it wasn't time. So I said no, thank you. Interesting. Yeah, so I guess I was waiting, waiting for the Pan Am opportunity. And uh, of course, when I came back, still no uh positions. So I worked down on Wall Street for about three months, and I got, for some of you who would remember, a Western Union telegram telling me that there is a position available, and would I come in? Well, I did. I passed the test. You know, I only got my foot in the door from the from the trip family, and I, you know, showed them what I can do. And January 24th, I started my first day, and that was in labor relations.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Um and that was 1977 when you were seven years old and Florette was only 20.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Exactly. Oh my god. Well, I had never been on an airplane before, and uh so my first airplane in um what's it 1977 I got there? I turned 20 a month later, and Pan Am, you had to work for Pan Am for six months before you can fly. So I was able to fly on Delta. So isn't that funny? Delta was my first airline, and uh I went to California, and I've been bitten with the bug ever since.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Florette, let's go back to you because you mentioned two very interesting pieces of information that you were a fashion model in your youth, and also that your parents were involved with World War II, and specifically, your mom was an air raid warden. And for our listeners, uh, we're talking about World War II. The American government and the American public were very, very worried about bombing raids from uh the enemy, uh, either across the Atlantic or across the Pacific. So there were air raid drills and wardens all across both coasts. Why don't we talk about your mother first, Florette? Tell us about your mom and uh her role in World War II.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Thank you, Tom. Uh, yes, it was called the Department of Civil Defense, and I always remembered that my mother's helmet was white, it was a white helmet like the soldiers wore, but it was white, and it had a black triangle with the big white letters C D on them, and she had an air aid warden's kit. And I remembered examining the trip the kit and finding uh the flashlight, the batteries, the uh first aid kit, the guidebook, and it had a picture of an incendiary bomb. And you know, it had it with the the can and the handle, the circular part and the handle. So I remembered what it looked like. And just to digress for a moment, on the day of 911, 911, when um they announced that they were evacuating the schools, and I went to get my grandson, I packed sort of an air raid warden kit. I packed up you know, water, flashlight, batteries, everything like my mother had. So anyway, uh the thing was that when we had the air raid, you I think you heard the stories about how in school we had the air raid drills and we all had to go down to either the gym or line up and rows against the wall and cover our heads, or in the classroom, if we couldn't get down in time, under our desks. So that was one of the things. And then at night, when they had the air raids, my mother was um in charge of our building. You know, each building had an air raid warden captain, and they would go and knock on everybody's door and tell them to put out the lights. So there was my mother banging with her flashlight. Oh, she had also had a billy club in that kit. And she was banging with the billy club and bang on the doors, lights out, lights out, lights out, lights out. They had a each building rep had a or captain, had a leader, uh, director that they would who would be with them. And one of the floors, you know, because in the stairwells, we were on the top floor of a five-story building in Harlem. On one of the floors, um, the light was still on, and my mother was telling everybody how her assistant had to hold her up on his shoulders so that she could break the light with her Billy Club. So um, you know, we had those experiences as children, and we were always afraid of an air raid, not so much an earrate attack, just a bombing attack or attacks of any kind. Uh, my dad had been drafted. He was always in radio, he was uh a ham radio operator, and he knew Morse code. So uh he knew all the communications tactics, and in the army, you know, they put you in your particular category. So his was for radio repair and communications as an air traffic controller, and he got those pilots up safely and he got them down safely. You know, he did a photo album, a photo story of the whole four years that he was in service. He had pictures of each of the bases that they were based at in throughout Italy. When I looked at the pictures, I said, Wow, you know, that's where you you did your um controls. He says, Yes, and sometimes we get an alert by the time we finish building one, we get an alert that a raid was coming, and we'd have to just get out of there right away and go to build up someplace else. So that was the activity in World War II. You know, they were either running from attacks or uh participating in attacks, and here we were at home with my mother trying to rehearse for the marches because they were gonna be on display in the parades, you know, in the Memorial Day parades and so forth, and they would show the civil defense workers. The air raid woods would have their troops marching in. We were living in Harlem uh up until mid-July of 1942, because in 1941, we were listening to the radio on Sunday. You had the stories, the Sunday stories, and the mystery story was this one of them was the shadow that came on at five o'clock on Sunday. First you had the FBI in action, then you had the shadow. And the shadow was just about ready to reveal the killer when um everything went quiet and we couldn't understand what happened. And then my and then someone was speaking, and when he stopped, you know, we said, Well, my mama, what happened? Because we were you sitting on the floor around the radio, and she said a little um what do you call it, little little Hollywood style radio, and she said, Shh, shh, we're at war. And my heart sank because we had been seeing in the news how Hitler had inverted and um invaded Poland, that there was war in Europe and so forth, and all I could think of was that it was coming here. And uh and so, you know, Mama was very dedicated. Like I said, she came in airway warden, she made um uh she had a job in a factory ironing wax blouses and she did all these things, and she developed TB. And uh we all had to go and get chest x-rays, make sure that we didn't have it, and then she had to be we had to be separated, and that's when we lived in Staten Island. Uh oh, before that, no, before that, we had gone to the Bronx. We had moved to the Bronx in seven in 42. In July of 42, we moved to the Bronx, and in this house we had a refrigerator, a frigidier, it was called, because when we were living in Harlem in um the five-story building, we had an ice box. And the thing was that we lived on the top floor, and when mama went to order the ice and they would see where the apartment was, sometimes they didn't come because they had to come up by fire stakes with this great big brig of ice on their uh brick of ice on their shoulders, you know. But uh, and then at night you had to empty the bucket underneath the ice box. When the ice melted, the water wouldn't flow over into the kitchen. So anyway, we moved to the Bronx and we had the refrigidier, and the building had an elevator. It was very nice. Diane, you know the Bronx. This was 168th Street and Boston Road. My grandfather always got us a corner building wherever he took his family. And because my father was away and my mother was alone, it was my grandfather who got the apartment for her in the Bronx, and he lived with us. So, and the trolley cars ran right by the window. We were on the second floor, one flight up. The crosstown trolley, when you took the trolley to 149th Street to go to um Manhattan, they had the crosstown trolley with a big X on it, and you made your transfer from the B to the X. But you know, and the school around the corner from us was PS 63, and we took the Third Avenue L from 167th Street all the way to the end to South Ferry to go get the Staten Island ferry to go to Staten Island. And the ferry was a um, the train was a nickel, the subway was a nickel, and the ferry, I guess, was free. Those were the war years and the way we kept moving. Uh, you know, my mother had to go to the TB hospital out, and she was happened to be in Staten Island and Bellevue. That was the TB hospital, and fortunately she survived after all those years. Uh, the happy ending was that uh the war ended in 1945. In the meantime, after about a year and a half out in Staten Island, we uh moved up to Kingston, New York and lived with a foster mother who was a wonderful lady. And then uh about we were there about a week when President Roosevelt died. And then in April or May, we got the news that Germany had surrendered unconditionally. And the teachers were explaining, you know, we had the sisters of the presentation. I told you I was an old-fashioned Catholic lady, right? So we had the sister and sister uh Ambrose was explaining to us that Germany had surrendered unconditionally, and unconditionally meant that they had just put down their arms and stopped fighting. So we learned as kids, we were, you know, getting all of these uh historical facts, and I was learning so much. And I was writing because you know, I was writing to my mother in the hospital, I was writing to my father overseas. And by the way, when I got the letters from my father overseas, I never got a letter, it was always like a little photocopy of the letter that he had written. And I guess he got the same things from me. I don't know. But uh, war is war. Anybody who survived World War II has a story. Either they got it from their parents who were involved in the war, or that what they remembered from school went from participating themselves, and everything turned out blessedly beautifully in the end, when the family was reunited again, and we were at peace. It was very nice at that time after the war. It was an interesting time in America.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Florette, your dad uh was involved with aviation. You used to build models as a child with him. Aviation has been this constant thing in your life. Why Pan Am? And tell us about how you decided to apply for a job at Pan Am.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Okay, well, first of all, I didn't I didn't build models with my dad. I saw his Bolsa models, and I remember seeing them on top of the piano, one, two, three, four planes up there. And um, he was always interested in aircraft. And you know, by the way, Tom, we used to go up to the roof, the sun, the tar beach. We used to go to the top of the roof in the summertime and um have lunch up there and whatnot. And one day a plane, I remember a plane was well, we see all the planes going by. This one was flying kind of kind of low. He says to my mother, that's a seaplane. It was Pan Am, it was a clipper. And we were just little kids up there on the roof. Daddy is pointing out he knew all the aircraft. He knew all the aircraft. But no, I was older. I was in college when I started making the model airplanes, so I was a little bit older, but I inherited all of that intrigue and interest from my dad. And my first flight was on American Airlines in 1955. We flew from New York to Boston and back, and uh, we took off in a storm, and I remembered how impressed I was that no sooner than we took off, we were up above the clouds and it was sunshine. We had flown out of the weather, you know, and the plane, they had curtains on the windows, and uh it was a DC three, you know, with the propellers. All right. Now with Pan Am, well, like I said, after meeting the um ticket agents from um Eastern Airlines, every time, you know, like I said, Acapulco was growing, and every time someone who knew me or met me uh would uh return to New York, you know how when you arrive at the airport, where you're coming from and so forth, and they say, uh, oh, Acapulco, and they say, Oh, how was Acapulco? And they say, Oh, great, and when you go, you know, make sure you ask for flow, and they give them my phone number. And so everybody, all these airline employees were coming down and I'm showing them Acapulco and so forth and so on. So coming home now, with all the distress, my whole life was changing again, and I was so happy in Acapulco, but I did have to come home on a sad occasion, and um sitting on the flight, and I'm thinking, now what am I gonna do? Should I go back to teaching? All this going through my mind, right? Should I go back to modeling? And uh, because I was very good at both, I was very happy with both. And then it occurred to me, I'm on a plane, I'm on Eastern Airlines, and I said, Oh, let me call the kids and see if I can get a job with an airline as a ticket agent. So I called, one of them was Sonny, and I said, What's the name of the title of your position at Eastern? And he said, We're ticket agents. I said, That's the job I want. Oh, and then I went to all the airlines. I went to I went to um Eastern, went to American, I went to United. They all wanted me as a stewardess. Everyone wanted to show, every all, because at that time they just opened up that um affirmative action. I was away when it happened, but now it was an effect when I came to New York. And so they wanted me. Eastern what they said, oh, we were done, we need a stewardess, we need, and Mary, all of them. I wanted to be a ticket agent. I just wanted to get back to Acapulco. So anyway, Sonny says, Pan Am gives, I said they won't want me to be a stewardess. He said, Pan Am gives the test every Thursday. You speak all these languages, you try Pan Am. So naturally, I went, I took the test, then I called to get the results. And they said, Oh, you did very well. Would you like to come in for the sales interview? So I went and I met Jim Reed. No problem. I but I was they wanted me, just like all the airlines wanted me. The only thing was uh Miss Hagan, the lady who interviewed me, she said, I said, you know, I want to be a ticket agent. And she said, Well, we we don't put them into ticketing so quickly because there's so much to learn. So when I started, I was in sales and service. We would call the passengers, that was a service. We would call them to follow up on one of their flights, either to inform them that there was a delay or to find out why they missed the plane or uh whether or not they when they were going to get their tickets and you know, remind them of their ticket um deadline and so forth and so on. That was sales and service. And I only did that for a couple of weeks, and then I was transferred to teleticketing. And in teleticketing, what that service was, we would send the information to the teleticketing office, and they would teletype the tickets to the ticket counter for the passenger to get their tickets. So and I was there for a while, but then uh I met Lisa down at the ticket counter. I was introduced to her, try to get an application at Pan Am. And she said, Oh, yeah, come and work here. Go and ask for so and so. And so, you know, go to personnel up on the 49th floor, wherever it was. So I went. Lisa said, you know, I said, Well, I'm working in teleticketing. She said, No, no, come down here, put in for a transfer. So I did that, but I wound up at Fifth Avenue, at the Fifth Avenue ticket counter, which was a boom because that was the busiest counter in the city. It was on the corner of 48th Street and Fifth Avenue in Rockefeller Center. So all you got were all the tourists, everybody from every country came into that ticket counter to either change their ticket, buy a ticket, plan a trip. And I remember when the lady told me she wanted to make a trip around the world, and I was only there for two or three days. And she said, Oh, I'd like to make a trip around the world, and my heart sank. I didn't know where to begin. But the thing was that you had so many reissues because um, you know, these visitors, they come to the states, they see how big the states are, how many places they ought to visit. And they want to go here, they want to go there, they want to go to Latin America, they want to go someplace else, and they're coming from Europe. So you had to rewrite the ticket, you had to charge different monies, uh, whatever money they would had the ticket was issued in, you had to convert to US dollars, you had to charge the percentages or the um international fee, change fee, or so forth and so on. And you had to do all this work. It was a lot of work. But then it was it was a lot. I became expert at it because I had done it so much, and then my transfer to Counter Vanderbilt came in. That was the ticket counter in the Pan Am building. That was the largest and most beautiful ticket counter in the world.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Let's go back to the early 1960s for a moment and tell our listeners about when the Pan Am building was first being constructed, and you were working in New York City when you were in your late 20s. And then please describe for us the famous ticket counter at the Pan Am Building, which was your legendary workplace for almost a quarter of a century.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Uh, I was working for First National City Bank as a night typist. We worked from six at night to two in the morning because I was modeling in the daytime. The New York World's Fair was on, and I was in public relations for General Motors, and I was modeling for the cars. I was working representing Trebo A. And then from there, I would go to the bank and type out the loan applications. At that time, they were typed out, you know, they were handwritten. You'd go to the bank, you'd apply for the loan. The application would go to the office there, and we would type it up and put them on little cards and send them to the processing field. So um the construction for the Pan Am building was beginning. And since I was working at 399 Park Avenue, our dinner hour was at eight o'clock. And I was because, you know, like I said, my father and my grandfather were engineers, and I'm always interested in construction and architecture. So on my lunch hour, I would walk down the block to look at the construction. Never dreamed I'd be in the building, and um, you know, then get a sandwich or something to take back to work. Here I am later on, all these years later, I'm in the Pan Am building. Working at the ticket counter and looking at this immensity, this immense um modern architectural glamour and futuristic uh that's the only thing I can think of, futuristic appearance of this building. It's like something out of um what was that movie? The Space Odyssey. Remember the Space Odyssey? Uh 2001. You know, and and Pan Am had a uh a part in that too. The walls were like concave, and then they had this map of the different cities that we flew to. They had the world maps, but then they had on the different cities that we that Pan Am flew to were in little um pink lights. They had the three counters, three huge counters that were circular, and they called them donuts. And Lisa and Diane, Diane Bruyon and I were in the first counter. This the then you had the middle counter which faced 45th Street. Entrance there was a revolving door as well. The one from the lobby was push open doors, but the one from 45th Street was a uh revolving door, and then you had another entrance on Vanderbilt Avenue off the corner of 45th Street, and that had a revolving door. And that also led you down once you come into came into the ticket counter, they had some steps that took you down to the tourist area where um Miss Gladdock uh worked and booked the tour groups. Uh, she was the agent who did the tour operations, and then there was another donut up above that where you had three or six more agents. And we all had little drawers with telephones in there so we could call up and get information that we needed. You could close the drawer, put the phone in the in the drawer and close the drawer so you have knee room at the ticket counter. The thing was coming from Fifth Avenue to go to work at Counter Vanderbilt, which was so attractive, but then you got the uh reissues again. But I had been an expert at them from working at Fifth Avenue, so that was a good feeling. I kept saying to myself, wow, I know how to do this. I can do this. Wow, look at all the experience I got at the other counter. It's working. So uh behind the um the middle counter, you had the office, you know, the the office where you had the cashier's office where we turned in the money because we took in a lot of cash. We took in cash, we took in credit cards, we took in checks. We would write what was called an MCO, a miscellaneous charges order. Anytime a passenger got a refund on a reissue, you know, sometime on the reissues they got money back. And sometimes they paid money, more money, additional money. But um, when they got a refund, we would write a miscellaneous charges order, an MCO, and they could take that to the cashier or the bank and uh cash it in. The two head cashiers were behind a counter back there. The manager's office was back there, and the uh coordinator's office desk was there, and she was the one who gave out the checks, who um took the attendance, who um did all the paperwork. And then behind that were the lockers, the men's on one side, the women's on the other side. We would change into our uniforms when we came to work and change back into our civvies when we finished. So, like Lisa explained to me, Flo, this counter is the most beautiful counter in the world, and it's also the largest ticket counter in the world. So that's the best I can do about the counter. Oh, the ceiling. The ceiling had inset lights and they had benches for the passengers to sit on while they were waiting to be called, and they were curved and they were like um marble or could have been plaster, I don't know, but they were beautiful. That counter was so beautiful. Mike Shamalzade was one of the managers from reservations who had come down to work there, and he managed to bring in so many attractions into the ticket counter to keep the people from being bored while they were waiting, to keep them entertained while they were work waiting. So it was a great, it was a great operation, Tom.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah, they they would have they would have concerts and things in the in the lobby, right? You name it, Tom.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Pan Am had it. They came in, they sang, they played, they did artwork. They even had a lady from Persia who would be weaving the Persian rugs to show you how the Persian rugs were done. There was so much going on there. It was a beautiful time and it was a beautiful experience. And the only thing, and I'm gonna close with this, the only thing I can say is all of the efforts that all of the airlines made to get people to care to quit the fear of flying worked. Because you can't get on a plane now, they're always sold out because the efforts to get them to fly were so successful, and it all began with Pan Am. It all began with Pan Am. They were the first with everything. Like I said, when I saw that, as I remember now seeing, because I saw the plane when it was flying over the the roof there, um, that it was a seaplane. I have that that memory stays with me. Later on, my dad took us to Queen's Airport to me and my brother, because he loved aircraft. He took my and I out there to see the planes land and take off. And it was at that time it was called Queen's Airport. And then later on, it was named after Mayor LaGuardia. And uh my husband used to say, and I learned it from him, when we were kids, LaGuardia was mayor, Roosevelt was president, and it was a wonderful time to live in America.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

Hmm. Let's uh let's shift gears. Diane, you started in labor relations for Pan Am. Tell us how you met Fleurette for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

First of all, working in labor relations before I got into reservations, uh, I got to meet a lot of the vice presidents and all the big shots because they would all come to labor relations to talk about their labor problems, et cetera, et cetera. But I was very grateful to Evelyn Wheeler when she was promoted that she took me down to the reservations in uh the Pan Am building on the fourth floor. Well, when I was there, part of the job, I was always interacting with the ticket offices, with anything in every department. And I remember going down to the ticket office, and I believe that's where I first met you. And then you didn't you try you came up to the Pan Am Bill uh to the uh reservations office, weren't you a special desk? Yeah, because I also got involved in employee um programs and things like that. We we really did try to make our uh employees feel special, feel wanted, feel needed, and have fun. And uh we used to have a different events every week, like a 50-50. I'm allowed to say that a 50-50, or we'd have uh parades, Halloween parades, or um, you know, uh Beautiful Knees when we celebrated Bermuda. So I got to know just about everyone in um in the reservations department, but there was always something about Florette. Every time I saw her, I felt like I was meeting an old friend. You know, we would laugh, we would talk, and you know, we would just pass each other, and that's really how it started. So all those years I just um always felt very special knowing Florette, and uh I guess we got together again. I used to have you come to the events at the museum, and um and and now we also go to the ballet together, but that is it in a nutshell. Everyone was very close.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Well, I'm you know, I'm so glad you're preservation because uh one of the things I wanted to mention was that when you had the the bees' knees, I was the one that won the bee's knees contest and won the trip to Bermuda.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Oh my god, oh, was that you?

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yeah, I showed up congratulations. I showed up in a pair of shorts, and when you had the Halloween parade, I had uh the hot pants, I had the black hot pants suit on, the black pants, and the witch's hat.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

It was wonderful, Diane. It was fun, it was fun. We had fun. You would you couldn't wait to go to work every day. That was it. Yeah, and I knew everyone there, so I felt like the mayor.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Why don't we talk about so working for this international airline, you have flight benefits and you can fly all around the world? Let's talk about some trips that uh are memorable to you, uh, either with co-workers, friends, or family. Florette, why don't we start with you? Uh, do you have any uh memories of some really great trips on Pan Am flying as an employee? Yes. Uh well that was convincing. Please tell us more.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

So many, so many time I, you know, it's hard to think of um of one of them. But I remember on one trip at night, I was going to Frankfurt, I think. And looking out the, you know, what how we used to work and then go to the airport after work and probably sleep. And then I woke up and I was looking out the window, and I didn't know what I was seeing, but I kept seeing these movings, lights moving, and I didn't know if they were spirits or what. And then the pilot happened to announce that you're getting a wonderful on your right, you're getting a wonderful view of the northern lights. And that I had always heard about the northern lights, but I'd never seen them. And here it was um in the middle of the night or whatever time it was, but in between two countries, two uh oceans, and or over the ocean, and I'm getting this wonderful experience. So that was that was one. That was just one.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Diane, do you have any uh favorite memories of working with Flo?

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Um but just that we always had fun every time we saw each other, we just catch up with the whatever we had to, and you know, you have people in your heart that you just no matter where you go or the time that passes, or you don't see them, nothing changes.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Right, you know, and then and with the kids up in um because you don't forget, uh Tom, I was a supervisor. And the thing was that the kids up in um reservations and also down at the counter, they would and the passengers, they would stand in line and wait for me. You know, supervisor. And the thing was, I would I'm a with all my miseries and everything else, I'm a happy person and I'm a cheerful person. And I the the most I want to do is just get somebody to smile, to to just uh you know, have a good attitude, you know. If you're gonna have an attitude, have a good one. And with my passengers, oh my lord, some of them had such terrible problems. And I remember one passenger wrote a commendation and uh they sent it to me. It said, um, she gives the perfect image. He said, I was so angry and and um I was uh just uh fussing and complaining. And Mrs. Vassal was uh so quiet and so calm that I eventually calmed down. And uh what he wrote, you know, and and then he wrote, um, they pan and put it on the letter. Uh they they um taped it onto the letter that they sent to me, um, the copy to me. Uh they said it's the perfect image. So whenever I write a commendation about somebody, because I'm always writing, um, and I put if it's a commendation, I put and they gave the perfect image because I know how I felt when I read it about me. So that's was the rapport that I had with Diane and the agents up there on the floor. Were you on the fourth floor, Diane? I was on the fourth floor, yes. And I think the Panamigo store was on the fifth floor.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Uh Pan Amigo was also on the fourth floor. Ticketing was on the fifth floor.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

So they had a little um uh right, right, you're right. They had a little uh corner, the Pan Amigo store had a little right, right next to the mail room. But my sister worked across the street in the uh Vanderbilt building. Uh what's the railroad building? Uh Vanderbilt, yeah. She Vanderbilt's with the McCall Patterns. And she came over to the aware store. She said, Oh, I went to the Pan Am Awareness store and I bought, and they, you know, they they would go and they buy stuff, you know. And uh I bought a little set of planes they had from in the aware store at one point. They had a little case with about six four six planes, Pan Am, starting with the um uh the 727, I don't know if they had DC nines, they had a 727, the 707, um uh 747, and two other planes. And I just finally gave them to my brother's great-grandchildren. So uh get them involved, yes. I kept saving all this stuff, and and I got so many gifts. Oh my lord. Uh it it it doesn't stop, Tom. It doesn't stop. Pan Am was an A-class airline. And when I when I was hired, when I was interviewed, when Miss Hagen was interviewing me, she said, um, one of the things she said, uh, now you have to know that uh we are famous for our service. Because at that time you still had Iada. She said, you know, uh where the fares are all regulated, so they're all about the same. But we are fame, we are outstanding because of our service, and that's what you saw when you got Pan Am. I mean, if you wanted an aspirin, you you couldn't get it on another plane, but you could get it on Pan Am.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

And you know, no matter where you went, Tom, or if you went on a different airline or wherever you went, as soon as you saw that Pan Am ball, our logo, you just felt like you were home.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

So I have a question for both of you. You've interacted with the public for many years, uh, and Pan Am customers. Do you have any favorite stories of uh passengers trying to book their tickets or any interactions that that stand out to you?

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Well, me with the passengers, my I'll give you something nice to begin with. Uh at 5th Avenue, which I said was a crazy counter because uh you know, all the airlines at that time had ticket counters along Fifth Avenue, and you go by and you'd see uh Eastern and United and Air France and Al Italia and Swiss air and so forth, and they all look very dignified and so forth. And then you'd get to 48th Street and Fifth Avenue, and you'd see, and you know, we were across from St. Patrick's Cathedral and Sachs Fifth Avenue, and then a little few minutes, a few feet later, you had Pan Am. And that was like a beehive, it was always packed with people, and every agent was always busy. Um, would and then they had to wait, the passengers had to wait because it's you know, the transactions take time. You have to do a lot of work with while they're you know booking, getting information, checking information, so forth. And of course, they start some of them would start bussing. And so this guy had an attitude, blah, blah, blah. And he's complaining, really grouchy. So then I saw that um he worked for NBC. NBC had issued the ticket. I said, Oh, you work for NBC at the She's Rockefeller Center, right? And I said, Oh, you know, my husband's a director at NBC. He does the today show, he does the tonight show, he does the bar, he had the Barbara Walter show. Anyway, he says, Oh, your husband is. I said, Yeah, his name is Sid Vassel. He said, Sid Vassel's your husband, and by that after so everybody kept after we I got done with him, everybody came to me. They said, Flo, what did you do to that passenger? First he was grumbling, and now you had him eat him out, eating out of your hand. And so that that was uh one of the reactions that I got because Sidney was a great director. And um, I remember I get passengers on the phone and um booking trips for NBC, and I'd say, Oh yeah, my husband is Sid Vassal. And they say, Oh, Sidney, to know it's the love of him. He's a great guy, Sid. So, anyway, down at the ticket counter now, going to the other stuff, the passengers would be waiting. Sometimes, you know, they'd have to wait and they'd get disgusted and they leave, but they need the ticket or the information, so they come back again. And so you had the you know, the the grouchers, but then you had the movie stars. I had um uh what's it Holtz, Holtz, uh Buckholz, Buckholz, Kurt Buck, Kurt Buckholtz, and uh I did his ticket for him, like I did Adamar, the the champion. Uh who else is the other one? Um Stan Getz, the saxophone, the jazz saxophone player. Uh and who's the other one? Uh Buddy, Buddy Hackett, the comedian. And um uh who's the uh Naomi Sims? She was uh one of the first models of color to be on one of the magazines, and she was leaving for Paris that night. And as a model, I was able to talk to her about modeling and um the ticketing and how proud I was of her. And uh I, you know, I did her ticket, uh, and she, like I said, she was leaving for uh Paris that night. The thing was that they were all very friendly and they were all very nice. Then the grouchers you're always gonna have, but the thing was that they would come back to Pan Am. And so many of them, they really love Pan Am, especially the ones from Latin America, the passenger the passengers from Latin America, because we had Latin America sew up. You know, you had Brazil, you had uh the West uh the Caribbean, and you had uh what is the Guatemala uh Buenos Aires? Oh, when we went to um what's the place now? Not Caracas, uh Iguasu Falls. Yeah, we went there from Buenos Aires. You know Iguasu's the famous world, and the name of the on the um remember when um Robin Leach had the rich and famous, the stories of the visit uh names of the visit visitors of the rich and famous, and one of them was Das Cateratas, the hotel in uh in um on the three frontieras. There's Brazil, Uruguay, and um what's the one next to Brazil? There's Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

Uh Lisette and I were gonna go to Rio and Buenos Aires, and in Buenos Aires, we went to go to Iguasu Falls, but I wanted to stay at the Das Cataratas, because at that time the program wasn't on yet, but Lily and I had gone there. And uh so we stayed. It turned out that the hotel wasn't confirmed. Um, they were still waiting for response. So by the time we got to the airport in um whatever that town was, uh I wanted to, I said, Well, I don't know the name of our hotel yet. I'm still waiting. And the wire came in from Pan Am to the airline that we took. It was Aurelinas Argentinas, right? Aurelinas, but it's uh Das Cataratas. Well, I tell you, it was luxury, but it was like being a movie, Diane and Tom, because I had the the the bearers, like you see in the movies in those jungle movies where you have the bearers carrying your bags and everything, and uh because uh there was a terrible storm and then the earth was red clay. And so here we and I'm wearing this white, you know, me wearing my white pants and uh Lily's all dressed up, and we're covered with mud, red clay mud from this terrible storm. Um, there was uh a lightning struck the uh air control tower, and there was no contact between the pilot and the tower. And we're flying over the Amazon River, almost into the river. My heart is thumping. Uh the here flight attendants, and it was those one of those little planes, the flight attendant's trying to get everybody to stays fastened in their seats, everyone is praying, and uh we landed safely, and we got the story of what happened. Uh so now, of course, we're still it's still pouring rain. Lisa and I arrive at Dascatarat. Now we know it's Dascataratas, right? Das Cateratas, covered, I mean my wife's covered with red clay, looking so muddy and dirty, and whatnot. I'm going into this beautiful place, but then it all turned out okay. Because later on, when Robin Leach had the program of the rich and famous, one of the hotels, one of the hotels you must see is Dascataratas, and when you go to Iguasu Falls, and Iguasu Falls was an experience, and it's on the Pan Am calendars. Remember the Pan Am calendars? One of the pictures is of Iguasu Falls, and I have, you know, I had cut out while we had the calendars, I would uh cut out the photos, the pictures, and save them. And now I have lining the walls of my kitchen. So in the idea, I have all the uh postcards that you get, the promotional postcards that you get the different events and stuff. But in the kitchen, I have the different um um visions of the Pan Am cities and the Pan Am challenges. So, you know, the name is never gonna die. You must never let that story die. No, we won't. That's our whole that's our purpose. Because um, uh some kids came in to help me the other day, and I have the picture of me in the Pan Am uniform. I put it up by the window. Every now and then I find a picture I like of myself, and I take a fish just to lift my spirits sometime, you know. And uh right away he, you know, he says, Who's that? I said, Well, that's me when I work for Pan Am. I said, What's Pan Am? And so I got the model planes here and and so forth, and the flags with the the logos on it and so forth. And I got I gotta tell them the story and pull out the book and show them the pictures and whatnot, you know. So, no, uh, because these are younger generations. But uh Pan Am was an industry, it was it was more than that. It was more it was more than an industry, it was more than an operation, it was a phenomenon. That's all I could say.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

It was a phenomenon. It not only changed the world, uh, even even the employees, even as an employee, it changed everyone's life.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

And and the thing was, even with Pan Am, with TWA and Pan Am, they were friendly competitors. Passes on TWA got passed on Pan Am and so forth. But they were in the end, when we were um failing, and TWA even then offered to help Pan Am, they were friendly competitors. But that's the kind of uh airline we were. I if it wasn't for Pan Am, I'd be in the street, I tell you. I for that airline for because it loved its people now. Pan Am worked for, you know, we the uh employees of Pan Am, they carried the airline on their back. When Pan Am struggling every time they asked for support, the employees united, the employees supported them. That's right. Pan Am always paid you back, and when they froze that pension, I said, Oh my god, because I had like 24 years of pension, and um they froze it in what 80, I think. I had like uh 18 years, but I have to think of the people who got nothing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Yes, and there are a lot of people who didn't, but that was Pan Am.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

They did what they could for everybody, you know, and uh even I wound up in Miami. Remember when we were we just they were gonna do the new Pan Am the new Pan Am too. And so they transferred me from personnel, uh, what was the name in personnel? Transferred me to Miami, and I was supervisor of the Spanish desk in Miami. And every week, every Friday, I would fly home, I pick up stuff to take back with me, and I was looking for a place down there. Unfortunately, I didn't give up this appointment because on the day that I invited the kids down, uh my children to help me look for a place. That was the morning of the shutdown. But they had gone to Ignacio knew me from New York. You remember Ignacio Palazzo? Ignacio. He was a cashier in um Miami, and so I paid him in cash. And uh I went back to re to cancel the trip. He said, Great, he says, Okay, Flo, I didn't turn the money in yet, so he just gave it right back to me. So that was my luck, you know. And then when I went back to start work, because this was before nine, around 8 30, something. So when I went to start work, the my manager, a nice guy, Mr. Um uh oh, forget his name now. Diff, diffan, he um said gave me a bunch of letters. He's flowable. You give out, call a meeting, give out these letters, and that was it. That was it.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Oh uh it was so sad because it was a sad day. I had to come back by train and on the highway, on the expressway, there was this banner from um the Miami Herald, and it was across the top of the highway. You know how they have it on the polls. Yep, it says the Miami Herald salutes Pan American World Airways 1927-1991. And I just I was sitting on the bus and I just broke down.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Oh, yeah, just start crying. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

And then thank god Mary Grash Garrion drove me to the train station.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

I did not know that. Yeah, I did not know that they had a banner like that.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

No, I didn't either. No, it was in lights.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Oh, it was in lights, but still, wow. They had uh, you know how they construct them for holidays and whatnot. That's how they did it, but uh, and that just made it even sadder because here we were stuck in this traffic jam, just sitting, waiting to move, trying, waiting to move, moving very slowly. And the thing was, you know, I'm a clairvoyant, I get visions and dreams and stuff, and I had seen this parade, and I couldn't figure it out. Uh, just this long, long line of something, and there was that was it when I was sitting in the traffic jam. That was the parade with the I saw the banner, you know, and then the dream came back, and I just went to pieces. And fortunately, Mary, remember Mary Gosh Gary and she had the wear store. She was such a darling. She drove into the train station, and again, um, my daughter got me a roomette on um Amtrak. Uh uh, I wanted first class, but all they had available was the roomette, which was fine with me. But you know, uh what Margot Kelly, remember Margot? Margot Klaus?

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

She said uh on the last line of the uh Panamigo, that article that um I wrote about uh Maureen O'Hara on the last line it says uh and Flo returned on Amtrak, she weren't returned to New York on Amtrak. Yeah, I was writing about the and she said and she returned to New York on Amtrak. And Marg said, yeah, because she says that was the final line that just told the truth that everything was all over.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Done. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

And uh, but you know, it was so sad because I was um uh uh it's just it was like a family, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Right. Even if you knew it was on the writing was on the wall, you just couldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:36

It's just yeah, but and yeah, because you know, while working down there, every day when I would uh get the little van from the hotel to the to the building, I would see the airport with all the planes, and I would look at the fleet and I'd feel so good. And then the next all over, you know, and I just it's still you know, here we are talking about Pan Am.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:03

So Florette and Diane, there are a lot of younger people that listen to this program and want to learn about the lives that you let you led, uh, and also the lives of your uh co-workers at Pan Am. Do you have any message from you to them about why Pan Am history is important? That's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

I can I can start.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Go ahead, Diane. Well, the history of Pan Am is so important because it was it was the one of the greatest companies out there. It wasn't just a corporation, it just wasn't an airline, it was a living organism, if you want to call it. It gave so much and it brought the level of knowledge, travel, education, and the world to everybody, everybody who touched it. And it shows you, you know, I can't I grew grew up in the Bronx, and when I was a sales agent, I used to call on the Bronx agents and I used to say, let's let's have a contest, let's see what we can do to raise money to get some of these children out of the inner cities and show them that there is another world out there. Travel is our best teacher, and Pan Am did it right, it did it in elegance, in class, and it was fantastic. So there's no much history out there, that's why we need to keep teaching everyone about it, reminding them that there was another world out there, the world of Pan Am. And there's so much beyond your own horizons that you can accomplish just from the efforts of Pan Am. And I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

Yeah, very well said. Thank you. Florette, any message to young people on why Pan Am history is important?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Oh, I mean, is it my turn?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

It's your turn. Uh I I would like as a teacher, I would like to say, no, I was a teacher all my life as well. As a teacher, I would like to describe Pan Am as a pioneer in the airline industry in the world of air travel. What I learned when I was in training at Pan Am was how not only did they take you from one destination to another, if they were taking you to a destination that was so distant that you had to spend the night, you had to overnight in one of the cities, they would provide a hotel, a place for you to sleep. And that began the international the intercontinental hotel system. It was Pan Am Intercontinental Hotels. So as a traveler, not only did you travel by plane, if necessarily, if necessary, you had a place to sleep and to eat, because they also provided your meal if you overnight at the hotel or if you stayed at the hotel. If the flight was delayed for any reason in those days, the pioneering days, and the pioneering days went for several years, you were provided with breakfast if necessary, or lunch if necessary, until the problem was resolved. And the flight was with Pan Am. If one screw was loose, the plane was not going to take off. You never had to worry when you flew Pan Am. The Pan Am mechanics were called the Rolls-Royce of the airline industry. Other airlines mechanics would call Pan Am for assistance if they had a problem, a mechanical problem with the aircraft. So that was Pan Am. It was uh as uh as as Diane said, you know, travel and I learned also, travel broadens you so much. And anyone who learns, who gets the experience of discovering another country could have done it with Pan Am. Like I said, you know, it made it made it possible for all c the other classes of working classes of people to travel. Uh this is history. So that when you tell the story, Pan Am was an American airline and uh they flew to Cuba. That was their first flight. A mail flight to Cuba. That's history. It's history about the mail system, it's history about the postal system, history about the airlines, what they did, communication. was made possible by Pan Am. So you have all these different historical references that Pan Am was connected with, was able to participate in, and in many cases was the pioneer who was able to establish these certain qualities and possibilities. Any other way I can say it, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

No, you said it very well. Yeah, I just want to just mention one more thing. I don't know if you want to bring this into it, but Pan Am also had a division called uh Pan Am World Services. And they, you know, worked all over the world. I mean whenever they were looking for a new city to fly into, many times there were no runways. There were there was nothing there. Pan Am World Services went, helped to educate them, to build it, to train the people. So we were very responsible for so much of aviation history throughout the world. Makes us proud.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Very well said. To add to that you that's a very good point because during World War II Pan Am knew all of the islands in the Pacific that the American pilots needed to learn to know. They didn't know Pan Am drew the maps for them. Pan Am drew the routes for them. Pan Am uh was able to direct them in places and this again is history it's not only it's not only um airline history it's the history of the war and the survival and necessity of an airline a knowledgeable airline that was able to contribute these services because we didn't know anything about those areas. Europe was different. Pan Am was flying to to Wake Island and to Hawaii and to um what's the place again to St.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

And to Japan and to uh Hong Kong Pan Am was flying to all those places and those little islands in between Pan Am was able to direct the pilots the uh Air Force the Army it was the Army Air Force at the time uh in these cases so that's all history it's world history it's airline history very well said well ladies I cannot thank you enough for your time I've loved this discussion and I can't wait to see you both in person in the near future because every time I see you guys it's like a uh a ray of sunshine it brings a huge smile to my face thank you tom this whole conversation has brought a big smile to my face you can't beat the experience no you can't and Florette thank you very much for your time and your insights and all your stories that you are just inspiring and when I get to my 90s I hope to be half of what you are amen and thank you for your service Florette thank you thank you thank you and I love I love I love seeing that poster of Pan Am seeing that um big symbol of Pan Am in front of you Tom and like I said you could be a great model with that picture you put in all the magazines okay all right well thank you again and um uh it's been great having you on the program thank you thank you for having us I want to I want to wait wait wait Tom wait Tom I want to say thank you Diane for making this possible and thank you for Tom for being so interested oh you're very welcome you're very welcome thank you tomorrow day it's been an honor 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.thepanammuseum.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 panamuseum dot org. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world thank you for flying Pan Am