I remember the first time I met Ron. I was jumpseating from St. Louis to Atlanta to go to work. As I was putting my suitcase in the overhead bin, Ron started walking up the aisle towards me. I smiled at him and said, “Hi. I’m Eileen….your jumpseater”. Ron smiled back at me and said, “Hello. I’m Ron”. As Ron said hello, I distinctly remember God tapping me on the shoulder. God whispered in my ear. “Pay attention to this person”. My heart remembers this moment like it happened seconds ago. The days, months and years that followed this simple first exchange between Ron and me were filled with a myriad of extraordinary firsts. Not surprisingly, Ron and I looked forward to a lifetime of firsts and growing old together. We often joked there would come a time when we would be too old to do anything but sit on the porch and reminisce about the remarkable blessings we shared together. I cherished this thought then. I cherish this thought now for completely different reasons.

“But the thing about the last time… Is you don’t know that it’s the last time till it is”

One of the best perks of being a Skytress is not having to worry about what I am going to wear to work. Especially on the days when I have to get up at 2:45 am. When I was looking through pictures for my last blog post, I smiled at the different uniforms I’ve worn over the past 34 years. Some smiles were elicited because I loved the uniform. Some were elicited because thankfully I no longer had to wear the uniform. Ron repeatedly told me what his Dad told him once…make sure you choose a job where you like the uniform….for you will have to wear it everyday. When I became a Skytress we wore navy uniforms. I love navy. I could wear navy every day. Unfortunately, our uniforms are now gray. Oh, well. At least I still don’t have worry about what I am going to wear to work.

My favorite Skytress uniform was my first Skytress uniform. It was classic navy. Everyone looked sharp wearing this uniform. And that’s not an easy task to accomplish when you have thousands of Skytresses and Skyters that come in every shape and size. Although it was a uniform, I could express my individuality with my choice of blouse and neckwear. If the mood struck me, I could choose to tie a neck scarf around my neck with my crisp white blouse. However, this was always the cumbersome choice. Getting the scarf to look nice was more work than it was worth most days. To this day I am still baffled how Skytresses made rosettes out of their scarf and wore it around their necks. I usually wore a crew neck blouse with a color band that could be woven through the neckline. Or I would wear a blouse with a blue airline tab we buttoned at our neck between the collar. These options were definitely less technical for me. I’ll admit. Much to my chagrin…there were a few times I buttoned my blue tab backwards. I would usually discover this faux pas after a leg or two of flying when I would go into the lavatory. My immediate response would be embarrassment. That would morph into laughter. Fortunately, I discovered early on, either people didn’t notice or didn’t care about my backwards blue tab. Yessiree. There is something to be said about a uniform. We all look alike, even if we have our uniform pieces on backwards.

Sadly our blue uniform was replaced by a gray and indigo uniform. We affectionately called it “the prison uniform”. You know the saying, “never let them see you sweat”? Well, with this uniform everyone knew when you were sweating. Egads! During the summertime we all had dark, sweaty, underarm pit marks. Believe me. This isn’t the type of uniformity you want from your airline crews. Skytresses and Skyters would go into the lavatories to try to dry the pit marks with the air vents by the sink. Sadly, this was usually futile. Heck. We needed turbo engines to dry these shirts between flights!

We were ecstatic when we went back into navy uniforms with our Richard Tyler uniforms. Even more exciting was the Skytress blouse had a red band at the bottom. The blouse was designed to not be tucked in. Alleluia! The signature red Skytress dress really stood out. However, I don’t think Richard Tyler had me in mind when he designed the red dress. One had to be a contortionist to get into it and then contort even more to zip it up in the back. Interestingly, Richard Tyler didn’t have me in mind when he designed our apron, either. During the fashion show to announce our new uniforms there was a model wearing the apron as a dress. Egads! I’ll admit. I never wore the Richard Tyler apron. Not as an apron, or as a dress.

There was a time most Skytresses and Skyters, including myself, wore our uniform aprons on every flight. By golly, aprons were a necessity when we served meals in the main cabin. I’ll admit. Things got really messy when we stacked three passenger meal trays at a time to bring back to the galley. Holy moly. Our aprons would be covered with sauces, soups, liquids from passenger drinks and fluffy icing from the decadent desserts we served. The person stuffing the meal trays into the carriers would definitely get the brunt of the mess. That position should have come with hazard pay. Our aprons came in handy during the beverage services, too. We would stuff our aprons with either peanuts, pretzels, snack mix or our famous Biscoff cookies. The goal was to pack as many snacks into your apron pockets as you could and still be able to walk down the aisle. Fortunately, these days, we have snack side saddles. The saddles hang on the sides of the beverage carts with the snacks inside. Clever, I know! The best part of the side saddles is that I no longer need to pack my apron in my flight bag. Yippee!

I no longer have to pack an extra pair of shoes in my flight bag, either. Double yippee! When I first started flying Skytresses had to wear high heel concourse shoes. The heels had to be at least an inch and a half high. Before we started our meal or beverage services we could change into our on board flat shoes. Heck. I spent more time changing my shoes during the day than Mr. Rogers did. One day I was walking through the Atlanta airport with my Skytress friend, Michelle. The heel broke off Michelle’s concourse shoe. I asked Michelle if she wanted to change into her flats. She said no. She didn’t want to get into trouble for wearing her flats on the concourse. Instead, she hobbled to our next gate with her broken heel. Years later we heard about a New York Skytress that would travel with one broken-heeled concourse shoe. She would keep the shoe at the ready in her flight bag. Yessiree. This Skytress would wear her comfortable on board shoes everywhere. If someone question her about wearing her flat shoes on the concourse, she would whip out the one shoe from her bag and tell them she broke the heel on her concourse shoe. Thus, she had to wear her flats everywhere. Genius!

Skytresses and Skyters are supposed to be in uniform compliance at all times. I’ll admit. We aren’t. Years ago in Cincinnati we had to stand in front of supervisors before we signed in for every trip. The supervisors would make sure we were in uniform compliance. They were sticklers on Skytresses earrings and Skytresses hair length. Earrings couldn’t be larger than a quarter. Hair had to be above the shoulder. The Skyters had to wear their pocket scarves with their blazers. Skyters were notorious for not wearing them. Thankfully, for all of us, the mandatory uniform checks eventually became more random. This randomness bode well for Ron. Ron was notorious for not wearing his uniform blazer. Yessiree. Ron carried his blazer almost everywhere neatly folded over his arm. Fortunately, Ron was extremely tall and muscular. Most people were distracted by his height and muscles. Thus, they didn’t realize he wasn’t wearing his mandatory uniform blazer. Again….Genius!

Ron and I were skeptical when we saw the design of our current Zach Posen uniforms. I believe Ron’s exact words were, “I’ll quit before I wear this uniform”. The original design of the Skyter blazer had epaulets on the shoulders. Ron repeatedly said it looked like a bellhop’s uniform. Fortunately for Ron and the other Skyters, the epaulets were removed in the final design. Zach Posen’s original Skytress uniform was designed with multiple gray and purple uniform pieces. However, the final Skytress uniform design our company went with, consisted of only purple and light pink Skytress uniform pieces. The thought of wearing purple pants with a light pink blouse almost sent me over the edge. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried on the purple V-neck dress. The dress was extremely comfortable. Much to my amazement, Zach Posen won me over with his purple Skytress dress. Yessiree. I was excited to wear it. Shockingly, I had never worn a uniform dress before in my Skytress career. Zach Posen designed our new airline uniforms to be a throwback to the hey-days of flying. Mission accomplished Zach! Ron was working the first day we wore our new uniforms. He texted me from the crew lounge. Ron said it looked like we had stepped back into the 60’s. Yessiree. We all looked groovy. Sadly, we all didn’t feel groovy. Unfortunately, the purple uniforms came with multiple, unexplainable health issues. The stories and photographs were heartbreaking. I, too, had unfortunate health issues. Many Skytresses and Skyters vehemently fought to get out of this uniform. Our company finally agreed to let those of us adversely affected by the uniform to purchase and wear black and white clothing. The first day I wore my black and white pieces to work, I was flabbergasted. I finally could breathe on the airplane again. Plus, I didn’t cough like I had pneumonia. I was ecstatic. The majority of Skytresses and Skyters started wearing black and white uniform pieces. Eventually it was decided we could no longer wear the black and white uniform. Instead, new gray uniform pieces were manufactured. Essentially we are now wearing the gray uniforms Zach Posen had initially designed. Interestingly, the once coveted purple uniform pieces are no longer being produced.

I jokingly tell people we are back into our gray prison warden uniforms. Sadly, we no longer stand out from other airlines. When I was a new Skytress, the Senior Skytresses and Skyters could wear either a gray or navy uniform. Unfortunately, some Skytresses and Skyters would try to combine the gray and navy pieces. Good grief. That was a complete uniform compliance no-no. Just like our purple uniform pieces, the gray uniform pieces were eventually phased out. Alleluia…Navy prevailed! I was thrilled. Personally, I believe we looked much more cohesive, commanding and dare I say it,…uniform! Of course, I have my fingers crossed that we will eventually change from this gray uniform, too. Word on the street,…or rather word at 35,000 feet,…says we are supposed to be getting new navy accessories to wear with this current uniform. Hopefully, the navy will slowly work it’s way into pants, skirts, blazers, dresses and sweaters. Yessiree. Navy uniform, uniform-ity! Oh, how this navy uniform-loving Rerouted Skytress can dream!