Flight attendant's job shifts from glamour to terrorism watch MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ? Diane Anselmo's hips almost prevented her from having a 39-year career as a Northwest Airlines flight attendant. "It wasn't so much that my hips were too big," said Anselmo, recalling that her hips were measured during her job interview. "They were an inch and a quarter disproportionate to the rest of my measurements." That was November 1963, when U.S. airlines were selling glamour to adventure-seeking stewardess-wannabes like Anselmo. Back then, businessmen comprised the majority of U.S. airline consumers, and the carriers aimed to please by selecting young, attractive women as stewardesses. Today, the job of flight attendants ? as they're now called ? is far more complex and stressful. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Northwest flight attendants were trained in how to respond to dangerous passengers on a flight. And, in the past few weeks, some flight attendants, particularly those flying routes to Asia, find themselves on the front lines of detecting symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Since many flight attendants in the mid-20th century were trained as nurses, the profession in some ways has come full circle. This is also a time when many flight attendants are losing their jobs as the major airlines fight to survive in an industry bruised by recession, terrorist attacks and war. These life-and-death issues contrast with the portrayal of flight attendants as giggly fly girls in recent Hollywood movies such as "Catch Me If You Can" and "View From the Top." Anselmo, an Edina resident who retired from Northwest a few weeks ago, entered the ranks of flight attendants during a much simpler time ? and on the premise that she'd shrink her hips. The Cleveland native, who wore a Jackie Kennedy-style hairdo, sent her picture to Northwest and submitted to lengthy job interviews, including an assessment of her physical attributes. But Anselmo wanted to travel the globe, having already worked as a secretary, a bookkeeper and a department-store buyer. So she overlooked restrictions that now seem politically incorrect, and graduated in early 1964 in a class of 25 single women. Anselmo occasionally starved herself to meet the airline's weight restrictions and joined her colleagues in wearing girdles under body-hugging uniforms. During her early years on the job, Anselmo gained 10 pounds and was immediately grounded without pay. "I was told to go home and take off all the weight," she said. She lost it in two weeks by dieting on Diet Pepsi, celery and carrots. When she submitted to the second weigh-in, she said, "I was hot. I was nervous. I hadn't eaten." She met her goal ? and then fainted. Beyond the desire to travel, some early flight attendants "were young women looking for handsome, rich husbands," Anselmo said. "The airline was the place to find them." Ironically, Anselmo found her longtime partner, Jack Lacy, at home. He was her mailman. When Anselmo started her career, the mandatory retirement age for a flight attendant was 32. "I thought I would stay one or two years," she said. "I got very nervous about being kicked out at what I thought was the prime of my life. By the time I reached 32, the regulation had changed." Anselmo stayed with the airline because she loved the camaraderie with other flight attendants, and the job allowed her to "travel to places I'd never get to on a normal income," she said. Anselmo, who looks younger than her 63 years, ended up flying for four decades. "The body may betray you from time to time," she said, but "in my head, I'm still 35." Hector Adler, Northwest's vice president for in-flight services, became a flight attendant 30 years ago after completing a master's degree in comparative literature at New York University. His career has taken him to American, United, Pan Am and Northwest airlines. "I was one of the first male flight attendants in the industry," Adler said. In the late 1990s, when Northwest hired about 1,000 flight attendants a year, Adler said the airline looked for candidates with customer service experience, foreign language skills, pleasant dispositions, and the ability to work with diverse cultures and cope with pressure. The pay for Northwest flight attendants is in the low $20,000 to high $40,000 range, depending on experience and hours worked. In the golden age of aviation, Adler said, flight attendants didn't have meal service carts, so they got plenty of exercise walking up and down the aisles to hand-deliver meals. "Clearly, the airline services were more elaborate. I remember mixing a Caesar salad on the airplane from scratch." He also made eggs to order for American's first-class passengers on international flights. Decades ago, some airplane cabins had the atmosphere of a bar, said Greg Riffle, 48, contract administrator for Teamsters Local 2000, which represents Northwest flight attendants. Riffle became a flight attendant for Southern Airways in 1979, three years after he graduated from college. "On a lot of flights, it seemed the primary focus for most passengers was to see how quickly they could consume the maximum amount of alcohol between Point A and Point B and half of the people on the aircraft smoked while doing it," Riffle said. Now, alcohol consumption is much lower and smoking is banned in airplanes. Today, Riffle said, "People are a lot more focused on working on board the aircraft. It used to be that people saw the time on an aircraft as time to relax and unwind." Now, people get on airplanes with their laptop computers. "People view it as an extension of the workplace," he said. Flight attendants are still schooled in emphasizing customer service and on-board safety. "What has changed is the world around us," Adler said. That means attendants must be prepared to handle perceived security threats. Jane Shull, a 30-year flight attendant at Northwest, said her senses are more alert since the 2001 attacks. Who is getting on the plane? How are passengers behaving? What kind of luggage are they carrying? Every attendant realizes that "if a situation arises, you are going to have to handle it," she said. Kathy Bien Johnson, another 30-year veteran at Northwest, said her first post-Sept. 11 flight was a trip to Beijing. "I was scared to death. I thought if I go down, I won't go down without a fight. I put my fire extinguisher in my cart." Johnson, of Burnsville, and Shull, of Eagan, often travel together between Detroit and Osaka, Japan, and have had to deal with the SARS threat head-on. Before leaving on a recent trip to Japan, Shull went to her medical center to get masks and gloves to make sure she was prepared to combat the virus. Adler said the airline is stocking masks and gloves, and a flight attendant can choose to wear them even when they are not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. "If that will provide the crew with a sense of confidence, then they can wear it at their discretion," Adler said. Though a medical background isn't required of flight attendants today, Northwest flight attendants sometimes contact Mayo Clinic staff for in-flight health emergencies. Northwest flight attendants are trained to use heart monitors or defibrillators. They also have first aid and CPR training. An immediate concern for flight attendants is whether they will have a job in the weeks and years ahead. The Teamsters' Riffle said about 2,200 Northwest attendants have lost their jobs in the past few years. Northwest has proposed a 9.8 percent pay cut for attendants as part of the airline's effort to reduce labor costs. Riffle said flight attendants are painfully aware of what's going on in their company and the world. But, he added, "You have to do your best to put some of those things behind you when you walk on board that aircraft. People aren't expecting you to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You want to make sure they see you having a good time doing your job." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.pscutt.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************