Maggie's Corner

I am flying back and forth across the Pacific again, and this is a mixed bag of nuts. On the one paw (almonds, yum) I get to fly with James more often, and I don’t have to ride in that gosh-darned commuter plane. On the other paw (pecans, which I do not like!) it has been very exciting learning about how airplanes work, sort of, which I do because I have also been chauffeuring Ms. Garcia, who you will recall (because I am reminding you) is the Vice President in charge of Operations for Garcia Aerodyne, the people who are making Cathay Pacific a new airliner.

I get the impression that Ms. Garcia is being patient with me, even though I don’t know very much about flying machines. James tried to teach me a little bit about it, because sometimes he lets me sit in the co-pilot’s seat in the cockpit and he says it’s important for me to understand this. So I know that if you don’t go fast enough, you will have a “stall” when you start falling, and if you go too fast the wings will come off (don’t worry! There is a lot of room between these two!).

Since the main design place for her company is in Arizona, Ms. Garcia has mostly been working by herself. When I’m in California, I get to fetch her coffee, but she also lets me see what she’s working on. She made a model airplane out of wood, and it looks more like a rocket ship than the planes that I fly on now. To explain how it works, she turned on a big fan and set something that put out smoke behind it so you could see how the smoke flowed all over the model.

I don’t know what all that means, but it made her cluck her tongue and take some sandpaper to the model, so I guess it was helpful. She kept telling me things about dragging something and lifting something, but to tell you the truth it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

I wish it did, though. Ms. Garcia says she is mostly a businessman and not a designer, and I understand the business side of it more. She says I ought to go back to school, because companies are looking to hire educated types even after everybody came back from fighting and went to the university. I asked if that went up to and included Garcia Aerodyne itself and she just grinned, but anyway I’m very happy at Cathay Pacific.

Back when I was in high school (walking uphill in the snow to get there!) I never really thought all that much about becoming an airplane builder or a businessman or anything like that. I figured I was going to be what we’d call a housewife, and that was about that. Actually, I reckoned that that would make ol’ Maggie right happy because I liked children and I like cooking and keeping things tidy (I hate it when things aren’t tidy).

Even when I got married and settled down, I thought that life seemed pretty pleasant. It wasn’t until we moved out to California that I changed my mind–the second time we’d moved and the second time I’d lost all the friends I’d made on account of how do you really keep in touch with someone who was just your neighbor when you’re all the way on the other side of the country except writing every day and eventually you just stop.

Everyone in the Foxtail Tavern seemed to be more in control of their lives than I was. Even if they had bosses, it wasn’t like they also had a husband who called them things if they didn’t have everything just so and it wasn’t like any of them seemed like they got to feeling the only good part of a day was the martini part.

I haven’t ever been able to figure out whether everybody really is happier than me or whether I’m just looking at it all with rose-colored glasses. After all, what is it that makes us happy? Everybody says the bartender is involved with the mob, but I don’t think so. I think just having people around and listening to them talk and knowing he’s important to them makes him happy. Mr. Devinian the wolf seems to be happy when he can be creative with his work. Mr. Ian is happy because he knows he’s got it better than us, and that isn’t a bad thing really on account of doesn’t everyone want to have made it? I think so.

I wish I knew what would make me happy. Sometimes, it’s enough just to sit on a beach with James and watch the boats go by and feel the warmth of somebody next to you without ever even having to say a word. Sometimes, it’s enough to pull a fresh loaf of bread from the oven and cut a piece right then and there and eat it and know you made it yourself and it’s the best-tasting bread in the world just because of that fact.

Sometimes, though, I daydream about what it would be like to know how to fly an airplane or negotiate a business deal. Sometimes I daydream about being famous or important and I feel like I haven’t accomplished as much as I could. Sometimes I wish it could be me travelling all over the world and being chauffeured around. Then I think Maggie’s just being silly…

But maybe… maybe one of these days…

As I expected, I am now flying the commuter route from Los Angeles to San Francisco. On the one paw, this means I get to spend much more time at home, and this is something I do sort of like. On the other paw, there is nothing appealing about the flight, the scenery, the airplane, the journey, nothing. Today we were delayed because a plane taxiing behind us blew a tire on some debris and we couldn’t move. This irritated our passengers, and our pilot.

I thought I would start an advice column for people (you are free to send me letters I will answer!) in my little newspaper corner here and to pass the time, I asked anyone if they had questions they wanted answered. Big mistake, Maggie! But, I need to stay true to my word!

Dear Maggie’s Corner,

Why the (profanity) can’t you (profanity) a (profanity) plane into the (profanity) sky. It’s (profanity) right (profanity) there you stupid (many profanities). If I don’t make my (profanity) flight in San (profanity) Francisco, are you going to (profanity) pay me or just (profanity) and tell me I can just (many profanities).

Signed,
Go (profanity) Yourself, Los Angeles, California

Dear Go,

Unfortunately, being a stewardess as opposed to Super-Man, I cannot just lift up planes that are blocking our way. We cannot taxi over them, and we cannot just take up straight off like we had a rocket engine or were a helicopter. We have to sit and wait. I know that it is not very comfortable for you. Please consider that you are seated, and that I have to walk around bending over to pacify people with coffee. I guarantee you, sir, that I am as miserable as you are if not more so.

Oh look, though, I haven’t cursed at you once and nor have I called you “useless” or grabbed you roughly by the arm and asked you “how long is it going to take” for you to understand that there is another airplane behind us and unless you want to get out and push we aren’t going anywhere.

Sincerely,
Maggie

But that isn’t actually what I am here in Maggie’s Corner today talking about, because actually I got to have a very interesting day! In my last column, when I talked about needing a new airplane, I said that I’d been on the same plane as Jose Garcia. Actually, I guess, it’s Jose Garcia II because the company is older than I thought. I passed along the business card he gave me, but James said he didn’t think anything would come of it.

Well guess what! The president of Cathay Pacific said the day before yesterday that he wanted to talk to him in person. Well, the Garcia company, Garcia Aerodyne, is located in Phoenix, but when the president talked to them Jose said he wanted to meet in San Francisco, because he wanted to see the cultural sights. So, we had a special flight to Phoenix to bring them to San Francisco, in an executive Convair airliner that was very plush. And guess who was asked to be present through this all? Why it was the only American stewardess, Miss Margaret Ellen MacKenzie herself!

Jose and his sister boarded in Phoenix and we mostly made small talk all the way to San Francisco, but they were very nice people, I do have to say. They weren’t even all that offended that we flew them in a Convair, because right now Cathay Pacific’s fleet doesn’t have any Garcia aircraft (that is what they were there to change, after all). I am used to people who are a little more cultured than I am, so it was nice to finally feel like I wasn’t being talked down to just because I grew up on a farm and didn’t go to a university and don’t know the difference between two kinds of wine.

In San Francisco, I was expecting that I would just be asked to leave or go home or something, but no! The president (who is American himself, actually!) asked me to stay for lunch, which was at a very nice restaurant. You may have correctly guessed that Maggie doesn’t get to eat at very nice restaurants very often, so I had a great deal of fun. It was sort of intriguing, because I didn’t follow all the negotiations, exactly. Jose said that the company could sell some airplanes a year or two from now, because they were very busy with contracts from the government. Mr. Farrell, who is the president of Cathay Pacific, said that would take too long. There was a lot of back and forth that I didn’t really follow, but then after lunch he left to go meet with some officials from the city or state (I’m not sure which).

That left me, Mr. Farrell, and Jose’s sister, Kalinda. She asked me to call her “Cally,” but I think Ms. Garcia is more appropriate. She asked if Mr. Farrell could take her to the Cathay Pacific terminal at San Francisco International Airport, and again Mr. Farrell just told me to tag along with them. This made me very happy, even though the terminal is just a bunch of maintenance buildings and the hangars.

Once we were there, though, Ms. Garcia was very animated. She’s the Vice President, in charge of Operations, and she is very intense. As soon as we were in the terminal she asked Mr. Farrell for hangar blueprints, and once she had those she started drawing in a notebook. Ms. Garcia asked Mr. Farrell if he was considering branching out into other markets beyond just Japan, Australia, Hawaii and California. Mr. Farrell said “yes” and before he could finish Ms. Garcia asked “how about New York?”.

Hong Kong to New York? I must’ve even looked a bit startled, because she laughed and said that the company’s engineers were working on a new airplane, and that instead of years she could have it ready for us in four months. She said Garcia Aerodyne wanted to bring orders in from the airlines, and that Cathay Pacific could be the proof that they were capable of doing it. I don’t know all the figures she was rattling off, but Mr. Farrell–who used to fly in the Air Corps I think–stopped her and said “that’s impossible”.

“All I am asking, Roy, is whether or not you want New York,” she said–she called him by his first name!

“Regular service? New York to Hong Kong?” he asked. But then he saw I think that she was being serious, and he just said “of course. Name your price”. Ms. Garcia grinned, then, and she has a mouth full of very sharp teeth. Then she just repeated “four months” and they went back to talking. They got very excited, and I found that I was feeling all that energy. It was like suddenly I believed that I could do anything.

All my life I’ve never been clear on what I could be or even what I wanted to be. I think, a little, I want to be able to make decisions like that. I don’t want to spend my entire life asking people if they want cream in their coffee. I think I could make something of myself. I want to go back to college now.

Ms. Garcia went off to find where her brother had gone, and that just left Mr. Farrell and I. He asked me where I lived, and so we drove back to Saratoga together. He asked me if I understood what Ms. Garcia had been talking about, and I said I thought I’d understood most of it. He said “do you think we should do it, Ms. MacKenzie?” and I didn’t really think he was being serious but I said “yes, sir”. Mr. Farrell just nodded his head. “Are you excited?” and since it was the truth I nodded real big. “A whole lot, sir,” I said, and he grinned at me.

I bet I didn’t change anything, but I was sure glad he asked, even if it isn’t my right to even be asked on account of I’m just a stewardess.

For now!

Well, hello again everybody!

I think they are going to wind up scrapping the plane I normally fly on, because the whole right wing is just causing nothing but problems and people are starting to get fed up in the maintenance department. I am starting to get fed up a little bit too, even as I’m not a pilot or a mechanic, on account of I do not want to crash into the Pacific Ocean.

Two days ago, flying back from Hong Kong, one of the coolant pumps failed on the first engine on the right wing, and so we had to go slow so it didn’t melt. This made the passengers agitated, because it was taking so long, but when I explained to them that if we didn’t then the engine might stop working (ol’ Maggie was just a little more diplomatic than just coming out and saying that, don’t you worry!) that didn’t reassure them either.

This is the plane I had my crash in, and I guess maybe they just didn’t fix everything. They didn’t write the plane off, I know, because it’s still flying, but James said that he was going to make sure this latest thing was the last straw. So, maybe I’ll get a shiny brand new plane to fly on! Wouldn’t that be nice?

Just kidding, of course. Probably, they’re going to make me fly the commuter route from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which I hate doing. First of all, it’s just short enough to not want to get some sleep or anything, but not long enough to ever get properly comfortable. Second of all, we don’t get to cook a proper lunch or dinner, because the plane doesn’t have a proper galley. Which is the third of all: it’s a little twin-engine Jensen Jay, which is very cramped and uncomfortable to move around in.

Also, I am flying with a different pilot then, but don’t tell him that I don’t like this ok? If you read this and you happen to know him.

Now that everyone’s talking about putting things in space (I don’t understand what or why, yet, but I’m sure somebody will explain it to me soon enough) I’d kind of like to be able to fly on a rocket plane of some sort, but James says those are still being tested and not available for lowly stewardesses like yours truly to try out. Cathay Pacific was actually talking about investing some money in an atomic aircraft! Wouldn’t that be amazing? It would be very fuel efficient, and big enough to have an actual kitchen and maybe some real berths and everything! I asked where I could volunteer, but I guess the development has stalled, maybe on account of how the Russians have the bomb now and we need all our atomics to fight back.

I really wish I could fly on an atomic airliner though…

Probably, we are going to wind up flying just another four-engine propeller plane. James says they might replace it with another DC-6 or a Lockheed Constellation. One of the passengers on this last flight from Hong Kong was Jose Garcia, and he even gave me a business card (yes, Maggie meets celebrities!) but James says if they don’t buy from established “Yank” companies they’ll buy from British ones. Maybe we could get one of the new de Havilland Caledonians (don’t I sound so knowledgeable? I am not, though, really–Pan American just debuted Caledonian service from Denver to San Francisco, which is how I found out about it because one of my friends is a Pan Am stew!)

They are saying that jet airplanes are the way of the future. I do not like jet airplanes, because they are noisy and uncomfortable, but they are fast, I suppose that is an advantage. I do not have to concern myself with it, because Cathay is only talking about running jet airplanes on their Sydney route, on account of they don’t want to pay to upgrade their terminal in Hawaii yet.

Meanwhile, so long as we don’t crash and the plane keeps breaking down close to Hawaii so your columnist gets some vacation that isn’t in the San Francisco area with her pilot friend, who knows where all the nice places on Honolulu are, I think I will deal with it!

We had a long layover in Honolulu when one of the engines on the right side of the airplane wouldn’t start (this is on account of magnetos, apparently) and for some reason nobody wanted to fly from Hawaii to Hong Kong with only three engines (how silly! But Maggie was one of them). Anyway, that was ok, because it just meant that James and I could go down to the beach and relax for a few hours. It was nice.

The flight was also nice. I only like Italian food sometimes, on account of the tomatoes which I don’t enjoy all that much and it’s got so much garlic, but something about the way it was prepared was just absolutely delicious, even though I didn’t do much because cooking is mostly Anne’s job. She was a cook before she joined Cathay Pacific and she is just so very good at it she makes ol’ Maggie look like she can’t cook at all and would be better off eating frozen dinners from Swanson. Even though it was mostly Anne’s cooking, Catherine and I both got complimented on it, which was pleasant. The trip itself was very smooth, and James even got the engines tuned just right so they didn’t make that hideous beating noise that makes me want to be deaf.

When we landed in Hong Kong, everyone was all abuzz, particularly the group of American businessmen who are ex-pats, James says, and live in Hong Kong because they just left the United States for whatever silly reason. They ask me to talk to them sometimes because they say they miss hearing American voices. We found out then what you all already know, of course, which is that the Soviet Union has now tested an H-Bomb.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago it was still during the War. My high school sweetheart, Hal Miller, shipped out to Germany in 1944 and was there for the Battle of the Bulge. I remember being terrified every day going to the mailbox or listening to the radio. It was my worst Christmas ever. It didn’t even get that much calmer when we all knew that Germany was going to surrender, because there was still the Pacific.

I fly over the Pacific a couple of times a week, at least. It has gotten to feel pretty familiar, but you can sort of feel the recent history of all the little islands. James was a fighter pilot during the War, and he doesn’t really like to talk about what he did, but I sometimes still get chills. I remember my best friend, Ellie, and how lost she was when her brother was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

His name was Henry, and nobody called him “Hank” because that was too folksy and we knew he was going to grow up and be the president. He was about six years older than me and Ellie, and he used to take us into town sometimes. Then we’d go to the drugstore, and he’d tell the man behind the counter that I was his little sister and hold my ears up, because he was a German shepherd (that’s why he was sent to Japan instead of Europe) and so his ears were straight. Then he’d buy me a pepsi.

I hated the way he teased me, but I always wanted to go into town with him. Everybody liked him, and when they got the telegram that said he was missing in action it was terrible, because we all knew even if we didn’t say it that the absolutely best scenario was that he had been killed and they just hadn’t found him. I understood that, and I was just barely 16 years old when we got the news.

I figured that Hal was safe, after Germany surrendered, but I knew that there were other sweethearts, and other brothers and husbands and sons fighting in Japan, and I still can’t even describe the feeling of relief, in August, when we dropped the bomb and the war was over. As long as it was just us, even in Korea it seemed like a good idea to have atom bombs, like it was going to keep us all safe.

Now, I guess I’m not so sure. It’s as though they just want to make bigger and bigger bombs until eventually they can just blow up the whole world without even thinking about it. I was a bit apprehensive when we had the H-bomb, but now that the communists do? It’s almost a sort of confusion. What are we going to do now?

You want to be able to tell your children that everything is going to be ok and the world is getting better. What kind of a world is it when you can’t even tell them for certain that they’re even going to live to see adulthood? Sometimes I wish I could go back to the summer of 1937, when we were getting through the Great Depression and the most I could complain about was having my ears teased in a dusty little drug store in a small town a million miles away from atomic annihilation.

Oh, well, I am back! I didn’t mean to be gone so long, but I have been a terribly busy collie so I do hope you all forgive me. As soon as I got back, the robot man pulled me into the back and told me to write, but… but I don’t know what to write about!

Ok, I went and told the robot man that and he made a face and said I should write about the first thing that came to mind. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is nostalgia, to tell you the truth. I grew up on a little farm in Indiana, and I had to walk uphill to school both ways in the snow (even in the summertime) but darn it if I didn’t have a good time growing up.

James isn’t from America, which is why he talks the way he does. One thing that I have noticed about him is that his ears were never trained, so they don’t quite fold properly. It makes him look a bit silly, even when he is trying to seem terribly dignified, like when he’s shaking people’s hands before we take off.

When I was growing up, my mother used to make me wear Dan’s Patented Bracing Tape on my ears so that they would fold right. I don’t remember when she stopped, exactly, but I remember that it was very uncomfortable and I always wanted to take the tape off. But, if I didn’t, then I got to go into Washington and get ice cream. I don’t actually think I got that much ice cream, but my ears look proper enough so I must’ve done better than I remembered.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Hong Kong, and James says that’s a city that’s treating being modern like it was a race. They’re building all these new skyscrapers and there’s all this new commercial development, and it makes me wonder what they might be leaving behind. Sometimes, I don’t even know what I’m leaving behind. There are traditions I’ve kind of given up, over the years.

For example, I remember listening to the radio with my folks at night, both the dramas and the news. I think I even remember some of the fireside chats, though my mom says I was too young for that. Now, it’s all television, and I think that’s so flat. The pictures were always so much clearer in my head.

Speaking of TV, what happened to cooking? Now, I may not be a very good cook but I pride myself on being able to do it, and I enjoy the taste of a freshly cooked meal (it was even better on the farm, when you’d seen the chicken that morning and pulled the vegetables yourself). Is anybody seriously going to eat these Swanson’s things? I hope not. Otherwise it’s all going to be speedee service from here on out and that just turns my stomach. They serve frozen meals on some of the other airlines… I’m happy we have a galley.

I probably sound like an old fuddy-duddy now, and I didn’t mean to. I know not everything was good about my childhood (there was the War, for one thing… kids growing up today aren’t even going to know the first thing about rationing. Up until a few years ago, I still had the tags for my 1936 C10, which was my dad’s until he gave it to me when I left home. Of course, I’m happy that they don’t have to grow up with rationing or a war or worrying about being drafted and going off to fight… but they’re going to have such a different experience than I did.

I bet my mom and dad feel the same way. Well, and you know what? I can just call them. I guess that’s something, no more party lines. Heck, half the time you don’t even have to have an operator. It feels less personal, though I suppose it must be quicker. I guess everything’s always going to be just all about convenience, until we’ve convenienced ourselves out of having to talk to anybody, even. That’ll be a sad day.

For now, though, I have the Tavern, and I have James and my friends in Saratoga and Hong Kong. Grrr and the heel of my right shoe is about to break. I’ll have to go get new ones. Does anyone remember those neat machines you could use to see your feet inside the shoe? It made me feel all scientific, but… I don’t see them much anymore. Was I just imagining them? Anybody else know what I’m talking about?

I have been mentioning things related to my work before, but I never explained what, exactly, it is that I do. Well! Now I am going to fix that!

I am a stewardess for Cathay Pacific airlines, which is based in Hong Kong. Right now, I am the only American stewardess, because the rest of them are British people from Hong Kong or else they are from Australia and have just the most adorable way of talking.  I hope they think the same thing about me but Indiana is a far cry from the Out Back, as they call it.

I fly on a route between San Francisco and Hong Kong. “Gosh, Maggie,” I just bet you are wondering, “isn’t that such a terribly long way to travel?” Yes, so we stop over in Hawaii. James keeps asking me if we’re leaving the United States when we do that and I am just never sure. I don’t think so, but it seems like a gray area, doesn’t it? It is a long flight, anyway, so I get to spend lots of time with the passengers and crew. I like all of the people I work with, in particular the regular pilot on the route, whose name I just mentioned because it is James and he is a collie like me. We have some things in common!

Now, most of you probably don’t spend a lot of time on airplanes, except for Mr. Ian because he owns one. That is different. However, if you  ever do find yourself having to fly somewhere, here are some things to keep in mind, from a stewardess’s (’s’s’s, so many ’s’s!) point of view:

• If ol’ Maggie tells you that you are bringing too many bags aboard, she has a very good reason for this. It is because both she and the pilot share another thing in common, which is wanting to take off. That is why the person at the counter told you how much luggage you were allowed to bring, and just because you were able to talk them into letting you take twice as much, I don’t have to do the same because it is not the person at the counter who will wind up taking an unplanned swim if instead of taking off we just drive right into the goshdarned Pacific Ocean.
• Now, I like a good smoke as much as the next gal, but I will do so on my own time and with my own cigarette, thank you. That means that when you are done with yours, please use the ashtray that is plainly marked. I don’t want your cigarette butts, because they are not of any use to me. I especially do not want them when I am trying to take people dinner and both of my paws are full of plates. None of my pockets are to be used as impromptu ashtrays, thank you.
• Please do not ask me if the flight is “full service” and then try to hand me money. This is not appropriate, for several reasons. If you follow this question up by giving me a pat as I walk by like I was a horse and you were considering purchasing me, all that is going to happen is that you are going to get off the plane in Hawaii and not get back on. I am sort of sorry to have to do that on account of I know it’s expensive and takes a lot of planning to fly but it is not acceptable for you to treat me that way.
• You should be thinking about your meal ahead of time so that when I ask you do not have to spend a minute staring at the menu card before asking me what is good. You only have three choices, sir, and they are all probably pretty good if I do say so myself, because it is either myself, Anne or Catherine cooking and Anne used to work at a restaurant so she knows what she is doing. A DC-6 is not a restaurant, however, so you do not need to treat it like one. Although, if you say that you enjoyed it and offer compliments to the chef that makes us happy and particularly if I was the chef I will make sure you get extra ice cream or brandy.
• Please make eye contact with me when we are talking. I know your newspaper is probably very important, but you are not going to be able to do anything about the news for a long time so it does not hurt for you to look at me when we talk instead of mumbling like I wasn’t really there. Also, it is not a good idea to talk about the stewardesses when they can hear you, especially not if you are going to speak in a fake whisper to the man sitting next to you and ask if I am deaf just because I did not immediately rush to your side when I was trying to help someone put their bag away.
• If you are afraid of  flying, that is okay, because I understand that. I certainly was my first few times in an airplane! But, just because I am in a uniform and work for the airline doesn’t mean that I know what every little rattle and movement is about, and the pilots are busy keeping the airplane going where it is supposed to go, so I cannot just go and ask them all the time. Please believe me when I say that the airplane is just fine and it is all perfectly normal, because it’s important to me that we not crash, too! Also, I have been in an airplane crash and I didn’t know it was coming beforehand so you should not expect to be able to predict it because you think there is too much smoke coming from the engine or the propeller suddenly changed its sound. We will get to Hong Kong okay, I promise!
• Here is a list of the times when it is appropriate to get my attention by tugging on my tail:       . Oh, do you notice something about my list? It never is okay, even if you are a young child! What have your parents been doing instead of teaching you manners? Though I like children, so especially if it is early in the flight I will just ask them to please not do that instead of becoming angry. Also, you shouldn’t tug on my clothing. Everyone introduces themselves when you first get on the airplane, and even if you don’t know my name you could say “excuse me, miss” or something that isn’t pulling on me like I had a bridle. Goodness gracious!

But, do not get me wrong, I like being a stewardess a lot. I get to travel, and almost everyone is very nice and courteous and don’t make me talk about them in Maggie’s Corner. I am just giving you some helpful tips for when you have to be on an airplane so that you and your stewardess can get along. And, if you are going between Hong Kong and San Francisco, maybe we’ll even get to meet! I look forward to it already!

Next time, Maggie’s Corner will talk about things you can do with baskets of cherries that your neighbors keep giving you because their trees are producing just whole boxcars full of them and you are too polite to turn down these cherries even though you think your hair is getting even more red than it used to be!

Well, now it’s been a couple of days… one of the inboard starboard cowl flap activators snapped and sheared the oil pressure regulation line (James will be so proud of me… if I remembered that right! I think I did) so we had to stay in Hong Kong for awhile. I like parts of that, for instance the parts where James and I get to wander around the city. I am starting to make some pretty good friends there, and not just in the airport! I still think the food is a little strange, but it grows on you.

The robot man who first insisted I start doing this then showed me that, of course, it has been making other people do them as well. Then, it let me read them, because I guess he actually is putting it out in a newspaper. So, I would like to say hello to Mr. Ebon, who is such a sweetheart and the nicest man I have met who is not alive apparently. I am doing quite pleasantly right now, Mr. Ebon, if I do say so myself. It’s good to be back in Saratoga, and it is actually kind of good even to have this to write on.

Last time, I said I would write about my flying saucer experience. Now, for those of you who don’t know what flying saucers are, they started showing up a few years ago flying about like airplanes, but without wings. They generally look like silver flying discs, like a pie plate, and nobody knows who is flying them. Some people think that they are from Mars or Jupiter or even from another star altogether. It is commonly believed that they are piloted by aliens, who probably aren’t “little green men” but that is what they are generally referred to, so you understand the article title.

The first man to see a flying saucer was in Oregon or Washington, I think. Two people have also told me that one crashed in New Mexico and the government took everything away, so maybe we already know all about these little green men, but I don’t. James, however, says that flying things that can’t be identified have been around for a long time, and that when he was flying during the War it was common for them to tag along with his Spit Fire, although they were not flying disks.

Now, this takes us right along to Maggie’s Flying Saucer Story, which takes place four months ago in March. We were flying the first leg of our normal run, which takes us from San Francisco in the United States to Honolulu, Hawaii. Because of problems with the landing gear, we hadn’t left on time, and it was pretty late. Myself and Anne, a fellow stewardess, had just finished cleaning the plates and china from dinner and many of the passengers were asleep.

I went up to the cockpit to bring James some coffee and talk a bit. The cockpit was empty besides us, on account of it was late so the copilot, radioman and navigator were all sleeping to be rested for landing in Hawaii. It was pretty dark in the cockpit, so James and I both jumped when there was suddenly a bright flash of light to the left of the aircraft (that’s the “port” side, for all you non-pilots!). It wasn’t a blinding light, and we could see an object fly to several hundred feet in front of the plane, then turn sharply right to fly across our nose and then back down the right side (that is the “starboard” one).

I didn’t want to raise any kind of alarm, but of course I was very curious, so I left the cockpit and could see the light trail off behind the airplane and start to arc around again. The galley has a window on the left side, so I could see whatever it was come up and level with us. I couldn’t really see much, unfortunately. It looked flat, but when it turned it looked like it might actually have been shaped like a crescent or a half-moon. The back part of it was glowing white, which is what we’d first seen. It flew along with us for a couple of seconds, then suddenly stopped moving and fell away far behind us.

James, a few passengers, Anne and I all saw it. We reported it to the army when we landed in Hawaii, but they said they didn’t know what it was and hadn’t heard anything about any falling stars or anything that might cause something like that. So, it’s a mystery to me. The army man I talked to said maybe it was a jet fighter plane, but James didn’t know why anything would be so far away from land unless maybe it was from an aircraft carrier. They wouldn’t tell us if there were aircraft carriers in the area.

I don’t like watching movies about space aliens or science fiction like James’ New Worlds stories, but I am curious about them, because I want to know what they are. Are they little green men with heat rays? Are they coming to study us? To meet us and explore  our planet? Maybe they aren’t even aliens, but some kind of top secret army project (that’s what James says). Me, though, I think they probably just want to sit down and talk. If I were the president, I’d make sure I was real friendly with them, too. It’s better than the Russians would do. Who wants their first experience on Earth to be borscht?

I bet they’d go for some cherry pie, which reminds me that I should get that started. The neighbors just gave me about three pounds of  fresh cherries. Mmm. Now I just need to make some ice cream.

The robot man said that I should start keeping a journal, but that other people could read. That’s why when it asked for a name I said “Maggie’s Corner,” as if it was an opinion column in a proper newspaper! Anyway, it sat me in front of a keyboard like a typewriter has, except it called the whole contraption a computer. This must’ve been what my ex Harold was always going on about at IBM. It has a little orange television, and when I type on the keyboard the letters appear on it, but I can erase and correct things! It’s going to make me look like a real typist instead of someone who has to hunt for every letter, which I do. You can’t tell that, though!

James and I got to talking the other night about what things would look like in 50 years, which will be 2008. That’ll be the year of the Olympics and a presidential election and eight years after the new millenium starts, plus 50 is a round number. Here’s what I think, of which most of it is about technology because that is what James and I were discussing:

1. People will take rocketship vacations to the moon, or at least a space base hovering over the planet.
2. Those same rocketships will let people get to anywhere else on Earth in less than one hour.
3. Highways, many of them elevated, will let people bypass small towns that will wither away like so many did when the railroads passed them by.
4. All diseases will be cured, but people will still get sick because when you say, “I think they should make everyone healthy, not just people who can pay for it,” they call you a Communist.
5. The 2008 Olympics will be held in a Communist country, though. People from the moon will compete, but they will not do very well because the moon has less weight.
6. This computer only takes up half a room, and it’s not just for running a RADAR or bombing things. I predict you would be able to fit an IBM computer under your table in the den, so every neighborhood library will have one where you can type a letter or have a newspaper or a television show beamed to it.
7. Every hospital will have a helicopter and they will save hundreds of lives with it a year.
8. You will be able to walk into a McDonald’s restaurant or a drive-in movie theatre and have a three-course meal Speedee micro-waved for you right then and there. Cooking will be an art form as opposed to a necessity.
9. Robots (no offense to the robot man who told me to do this!) will be used for chores like mowing the lawn, vaccuuming, washing dishes, and cleaning clothes.
10. I love a computer. That is not a prediction, but I wanted to add a ! to what I said about, “no offense to the robot man”, and it showed me how to use some of the buttons on the keyboard to just type more things there. This is so much better than a typewriter.
11. That means there won’t be any need for typists anymore. For that matter, we won’t need courtroom recorders, because computers will do that by themselves.
12. Atomic power will be commonplace, but there will not be another atomic war.
13. We won’t talk about food being “in season” anymore, because huge greenhouses with mirrors to reflect artificial sunlight (or a whole artificial atomic sun) onto the plants will mean that it is always the right growing season for whatever you need.
14. I agree with James that flying cars would be silly, but I think that airplanes will fly themselves and be so fast that there’s no need for stewardesses like me.
15. I just added a new line at the beginning without any trouble. I should tell the robot man to call this “Maggie’s Corner of the Future” instead! I feel like a journalist.
16. Speaking of which, there will be lots of women journalists. In addition, the president will have been a woman, a Roman Catholic, and maybe even a Communist or an Atheist. In addition to that, there will be an airline with a woman pilot (that won’t be me because I can’t even push the pedals down since they weigh 500 pounds).
17. We will figure out that flying saucer thing (I will have to relate my very own flying saucer story).
18. Everyone will have their own phone line like they do in the city, instead of sharing one like in the country. No more “stop your jawing for just two seconds, Irma, on account of Daisy here’s got a question about her schoolwork for Hal Miller up the road and if she fails arithmetic it’s on your head!” which I remember ma saying because that was the first time I got to talk to the man I would later marry, and I was very nervous even though it was just about my times tables.
19. There will be so many people with phones that they will have to add three more numbers, or maybe six except as how right now it’s three numbers (or two letters and a number) plus four, and adding three more would be ten numbers but adding six more would be thirteen.
20. You will be able to take a pill or get a vaccination to stop shedding.

The next time I see James, I will ask him what his predictions are too, but I am going to stop here for now because this is already so darned long. Besides which, your columnist has to go find Devin the wolf and rap him on his pink nose for sticking his head in to say “oh, hello, fluffy cloud” since I have so much fur.

Sincerely,
Maggie MacKenzie

P.S. I will invent a better pen name