Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Flight Attendant's Adventures 36,000 Feet and Below (22 page)

A week after September 11, my first layover city was Boston, and the second night our layover city was New York. Due to the circumstances, I didn’t want to go to either city. That was coincidentally the trips I held in my bid the previous month.

Our hotel in New York was located in a prime location in Manhattan. We heard they were letting crewmembers go down and see Ground Zero as long as we showed our identification. The three of us decided to take the train as far as we could and
walk the rest of the way. Usually, you could take the train all the way down to the World Trade Center, but on this day and for a long time after, it was closed.

I was the first to notice a strange odor that filled the air. We didn’t know New York very well, but knew we were getting close. We observed a large United States flag way up in the sky. That had to be the spot. The street turned a strange color. I guess the soot had not been trampled on by the hustle and bustle of the city yet. We noticed layers and layers of dirt and debris on all the buildings.

When we arrived at Ground Zero, we saw the collapsed buildings. Beams pointed out at different angles; steam still rose from the ground. The police were there protecting the site from onlookers.

My eyes started to burn, and sandy debris coated my teeth. Only one store remained opened that we could find — it was covered in dirt — but the Asian owner wanted to keep it open for the workers. He shared his story of how he knew most of the people in the towers because his coffee shop was across the street. “Some of my regulars are gone,” he said sadly.

We walked out of the store. The stench in the air was something uniquely different. It was like an electrical smell, a rubber smell, but also the smell of death was there. You could feel an atmosphere of doom and disbelief. I stared speechless with
my hand over my mouth. How could anyone have done this? We heard the sound of a siren and saw an ambulance leave the scene. I overheard a man say another body had been found. Even now that vision is etched in my mind and in my senses. Members of my airline family perished there and to me like so many others who lost family members, fellow firefighters, policeman and rescue personnel, it is an especially sacred place.

y job changed after September 11. We were not only waitresses, babysitters, counselors, caretakers, doctors, nurses, and bartenders, now security guard had been added to the list.

We used to have a 3-class (first class, business class and coach) domestic deluxe service on a 767 aircraft called a transcon flight from Los Angeles to Miami. I was working in business class for the arduous 5 hour trip. About half way through the service, a flight attendant working coach approached us in the mid-galley with an alarmed look on her face. She informed us that another flight attendant found a cell phone attached to a hanger in the aft lavatory. Before 9/11, we would have thought nothing of it; however, our new security training taught us that different devices could be used to detonate or be disguised as a bomb. The fact that this phone was clipped to a hanger just seemed suspicious.

We had federal marshals flying with us that day, so we asked their advice on the matter. They indeed felt it was strange that the cell phone was attached to a hanger and suggested an announcement be made to see if anyone would claim it. Flight attendant number one made the announcement in English. No one responded. Again, he made the announcement in English. Nothing. A Spanish speaking flight attendant made an announcement in Spanish. Again, no response!

The three of us business class flight attendants continued on with our duties. We were totally unaware of what activities were going on in the back of the aircraft. The coach flight attendants were busy building a bomb shelter made with blankets and other materials suggested for use in training. No one asked for our assistance, so we had no idea what they were doing. Next thing I know the captain called and said we were diverting to Dallas.

I said in a humorous tone, “Wait a minute, I need to make my commuter flight to Atlanta.” I just felt there could be a solution to the unclaimed cell phone. The flight attendants gathered around the coach galley to discuss the situation. “Why don’t I go down one aisle and someone else goes down the other and ask each person point blank if they have their cell phone?” I suggested. The number one flight attendant volunteered. Down the aisles we went. “Do you have your cell phone? Do you have your cell phone? Do you have your cell phone?”

Flight attendant number one approached a sleeping Japanese man. “Excuse me sir, are you missing a cell phone?” He didn’t speak any English, but his bi-lingual Japanese partner translated for us. The now awake but groggy man searched his pockets and a sheepish grin appeared on his face. “Yeees!” We found him!

We brought the fellow to the aft galley area to identify his device and show him the chaos he had unknowingly created. We retrieved his phone and thankfully continued with our flight pattern toward Miami. I made my commuter flight to Atlanta and reflected once again on that horrible day and how it changed our world.

ecently, I stayed at a beautiful ornate hotel in San Antonio, where I was awakened by my alarm clock at 3:15 a.m. My routine for getting up for an early sign-in is rather standard. I turn on CNN Headline News, make my coffee, and then take a shower.

After a hot shower, I poured a cup of coffee and just then the TV suddenly went mute. I turned the volume up and continued putting on my makeup while watching the news. To my amazement, the channels were changing by themselves. The remote control was on the other side of the bed.

I looked around the room feeling uneasy. I gazed upward and saw old, old pipes.
This hotel is haunted
. It must have been a male ghost, because like most males he wanted control of the remote!

I dressed quickly and headed to the lobby. Two gentlemen were working the front desk.

“Hey you guys, how old is this hotel?”

One clerk said, “It is over a hundred years old.”

I asked, “Is it haunted.”

They looked at each other and snickered. “Oh yeah,” they both chimed.

One of the gentlemen recalled an early morning only two weeks ago where a maid had called him at the front desk. She tried to open the door to the laundry room in the basement, but it was locked. It never had been locked previously. He searched the drawers for any keys that could possibly open the door and to his surprise found one that said laundry room. He went downstairs, tried the key and it did not work. After trying the key again, he was disappointed it didn’t open the door. Just as he and the maid were about to give up, they heard something from inside the room. The floor was your typical cement basement floor. Coming toward them was a distinct sound of a lady walking in high heel shoes. The footsteps turned and headed to the center of the room. They tried the key one more time. It opened right up, but no one was in the room.

The other hotel attendant led me to the kitchen. He showed me where he was standing when his encounter occurred.

“Do you see the end of the kitchen?” he asked. “You and I went through the only entrance to the room. I saw a man standing at the opposite far end of the kitchen. I thought he was
a homeless man who had somehow entered the building and wandered into the kitchen. As I slowly approached to confront him, he just disappeared! No one was there. I saw him,” he said adamantly.

“People are seen in the ballroom dancing as it was back in the 1930s,” he continued. “They are dressed as if attending a costume party. One was spotted holding a mask in front of his face.” He said on the 10th floor a man was spotted several times in his tuxedo. Pretty cool and
Very spooky!

ood morning,” I said in a happy voice to all the passengers coming aboard. It was an early morning flight, and I am my best in the morning. I know not everyone is like me, so I am not offended when I hear a grunt from someone or even a look of disgust. Every once in a while, I board someone who is like me and we immediately click.

Johnny, a passenger in his mid-30s, was one such passenger. He was a handsome guy wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Johnny stepped on the aircraft eating trail mix. I commented on how healthy that looked. He flashed a heartwarming smile. As he stopped to talk to me, he showed signs of light-headedness and grabbed the closet door. I took his elbow and guided him to an empty first class seat.