The Girl on the Winding Staircase
Sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery, doesn't it?
The identity of this particular girl was a mystery until yesterday, when Laraine Tracy phoned to tell me she was the girl pictured on page 58 of my new book Fujiyama Trays & Oshibori Towels - Recalling a time when passenger flight was an adventure and the Boeing Stratocruiser ruled the skies.
I met Laraine on Saturday, March 21, at the Bloomington Art Center Writer's Festival and Book Fair. She introduced herself as a former stewardess for Northwest Airlines from 1948 until 1952 when she worked on the Boeing Stratocruiser. She bought a book and said she, too, had stories to share about those olden, golden days. We exchanged phone numbers.
Then last evening, after she had read the book, she called to tell me she was the stewardess climbing up the circular staircase from the Stratocruiser's lower level Fujiyama cocktail lounge, in the photo on page 58. Not only that, she said she helped write the recruiting brochure pictured on page 15. Plus she had more stories.
We are meeting for lunch this Friday to swap stories. I will bring paper and pencil. Probably a recorder. This should be good!
Today Laraine lives in Bloomington Minnesota and volunteers at the Bloomington Center for the Arts. She serves on the BAC Literary Council. She has published a collection of essays, On The Other Hand ..., in which her reflections "On Airplanes" delights and entertains.
posted by Lady Skywriter at
2:25 PM
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