Flying by the Seat of My Pants: Flight Attendant Adventures on a Wing and a Prayer (13 page)

W
here are they now?
I promised to tell you what each of the flight attendants mentioned in the dedication is doing now. Here they are:

T
RACY
(M
ANKE
) F
RAME
was only a flight attendant for a very short time, as her daddy owns a large business (Manke Lumber) in the Pacific Northwest and it was agreed that she would fly only until she got married. She has always been drop-dead beautiful, and she went on to become Mrs. Deward William Frame III. She is the mother of three children and spends her days playing tennis, volunteering with the Junior League, and attending social events. She remains to this day one of my most cherished friends.

S
USAN
(H
EAD
) E
VANS
is the flight attendant I wrote about in my book
101 Simple Lessons for Life
. And also referred to in my book
If I Ignore It, It Will Go Away…and Other Lies I Thought Were True
. After Susan lost a child (her second baby, named Jack) to sudden infant death syndrome, she took ten years leave from flying and to this date has never returned. She spends her days as the mother of three children and maintains a lovely home, which was listed in
Better Homes and Gardens
as
“Today’s English Tudor.” (I love telling people that.) She and I and Tracy Frame meet at least once a year for wing-sister lunches. Susan Evans and Tracy Frame are the two flight attendants in my life whom I have spent the most time with outside of work.

S
ALLY
(B
LACKIE
) B
ARTLETT
is now living in Southern California. She is happily married and the mother of one little boy. She works part time as a personal trainer at an exclusive health club. And she has recently begun a successful career as a writer. Of all my flight attendant girlfriends, Sally and I were most often together on international layovers. We ate McDonald’s in Seoul, Korea, ate pastries near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, had tea in London, and have remained in touch for more than twenty years. I still consider her one of my closest friends.

M
ELANIE
F
EDDERSEN
is also one of my closest wing-sisters who hasn’t flown in more than ten years. She shared a home with me during the early years of my career and is the only one of my former wing-sisters who has not yet found Mr. Right. She is a very successful corporate real estate agent in Chicago and the mother of a two-year-old. You may e-mail her at [email protected] but only if you have the perfect man for her. (Think of me as her matchmaker. She tells me she is happily single, but as her matchmaker I know she really means, “No bizarre dates, please.”)

You may also e-mail her if you want a luxury property in
Chicago. She is blonde, five foot three, and wears a size 4. (I’m almost over hating her for this.) My favorite recent Melanie story happened when I visited her this year in Chicago. She had to show a home to a movie-star client. She wasn’t allowed to disclose the name of the movie star. And due to my propensity to go nuts when around celebrities, she made me wait in the car. With the windows rolled up. Across the street. Well, was it my fault that I watched her every move with binoculars? When I saw John Cusack ride up on his bike and act normal while he met her, I started screaming so loud, she said they could hear me despite the fact that the windows were rolled up. She later mentioned I was also clawing at the window. She said she glanced over at me and frowned, as if to say, “I have no idea who that is.” And then she walked into the secure building with John. (Now listen, John Cusack, if you are reading this, there is a part for you and Joan in the movie. E-mail me at [email protected], and we’ll talk about it.)

Flight attendant Melanie Capado, who is not mentioned in the dedication, recently sent word to me through Susan Evans that I once told her I would mention her in a book. Here is that mention: I used to fly with Melanie out of Seattle and have never in my life met a flight attendant who reminded me more of a movie star. So, Sandra Bullock, if you’re reading this, we have to put Melanie in the movie too! Sorry, that is just my demand. (Unless you don’t want to.)

F
irst acknowledgments for this book go to my three early readers, all of whom I called every five minutes for five months straight to read them a comment or comment on an edit. They are (in order of how often they were called):

1. Connie Smiley, an artist and my friend for thirty years.
   

2. Christy Award-winning novelist Michael Morris. If you want to know how I met Michael Morris, read my first book,
   101 Amazing Things About God
   . Its a great story that continues to this day.
   

3. Author Sue Farren. Watch for her 2005 release from Hyperion. Sue was recently written up in the
   Wall Street Journal
   for innovation in selling her book to Hyperion. She has been a friend for two years.
   

I am blessed personally and professionally to know these people and to have their private phone numbers.

Thanks to Chris Ferebee (attorney) at Yates and Yates for negotiating my first four book contracts and thereby changing my life—and helping dreams come true. Thanks to Sealy Yates for still acting like he knows me in public when I’ve been such
an “odd” client. And to Susan Yates and Curtis Yates for still laughing after all these years.

Thanks to Elisa Fryling Stanford and Don Pape (my first editor on this project and my revered publisher, respectively). And thanks to Shannon Hill (the final editor) who, in the eleventh hour, had to receive a Hail Mary pass of this manuscript and managed to carry it across the finish line…so the team looked good.

Thanks to Joel Kneedler and the whole WaterBrook publicity and marketing team for helping me to understand that it isn’t just about writing a book; it’s about getting the word out. And to Brian, head of sales, who told me, “This time, write a book about being a flight attendant.”

Thanks to the people who run these restaurants where I sat for hours and wrote this book: The Breakfast Club in Tybee Island, Georgia; Baibry’s Café and Frank and Linda’s Cafe in Rincon, Georgia; and Truffles in Bluffton, South Carolina.

Also, thanks to Tom and Mandy (my husband and daughter) who prayed every day near the end of this book that I would just finish it! And their prayers were answered finally… with yes.

M
arsha Marks is a popular speaker and author known for her ability to blend humor with spiritual insights. She is the author of
101 Amazing Things About God, 101 Simple Lessons for Life
, and
If I Ignore It, It Will Go Away
. She is also a former contributing editor to
Campus Life
. Her articles and stories have appeared in such publications as
Writer’s Digest, Eternity, Moody Monthly
and
The Christian Reader
, and she has appeared on numerous radio and television programs, including
Life Today
with James and Betty Robison. Marsha and her family make their home in Savannah, Georgia.

Please visit Marsha at
www.flyingbytheseatofmypants.net
, or write to her at [email protected].

W
ATER
B
ROOK
PRESS

F
LYING BY THE
S
EAT OF
M
Y
P
ANTS
P
UBLISHED BY
W
ATER
B
ROOK
P
RESS
12265 Oracle Blvd., Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
A division of Random House, Inc
.

All Scripture quotations or paraphrases are taken from the
Holy Bible, New International Version®
. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. These are Psalm 23:1, Psalm 100:3, Matthew 10:16, and Proverbs 3:5-6.

Copyright © 2005 by Marsha Marks

Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Attorneys and Counselors, Orange, California.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marks, Marsha.
      Flying by the seat of my pants : flight attendant adventures on a wing and a prayer / Marsha Marks.—1st ed.
           p. cm.
      1. Christian life—Anecdotes. I. Title.
          BV4501.3.M267 2005
          242—dc22

2004029441

eISBN: 978-0-307-55129-0

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