Darrell Anderson became the first male flight attendant for Frontier Airlines in the 1970s, a time when the role was predominantly female. He talks about the experience with a former colleague.
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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It’s Friday, which, among other good things, means it’s time for StoryCorps and a conversation between Darrell Anderson and his former colleague Merribeth Bryant. In the early 1970s, Anderson had just returned from Vietnam and needed a job, so he applied to be a flight attendant for an up-and-coming airline called Frontier. Frontier had never hired a man for that role, let alone a Black man.
DARRELL ANDERSON: I figured I wasn’t going to get the job, but I went and got an interview. The lady was about 60 years old. I looked at her, and I said, ooh, honey, you’re a fox.
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ANDERSON: She looked at me like, well, you’re the kind of person that we need, even though you’re full of it. And so I got hired.
MERRIBETH BRYANT: The pilots were really upset because it’s always been pretty young stewardesses that they could flirt with. And then they hired a male, and he’s Black.
ANDERSON: I remember opening up the cockpit, and the pilots go, who in the hell are you?
BRYANT: (Laughter).
ANDERSON: You know, there was a lot of different situations that happened on that airplane for me. And you get all types of people who fly.
BRYANT: That’s right.
ANDERSON: I had a guy on a flight going to Oklahoma City. So homeboy decided to call me Rabbit. You know, Rabbit, why don’t you get me a drink? So I said, for me to hippity hop my butt up there, it’s going to cost you. And he just thought that was funny, so he ended up buying everybody drinks.
BRYANT: (Laughter).
ANDERSON: I’d make him tip us every time I had to go get a drink.
BRYANT: (Laughter).
ANDERSON: I turned his stupidity into paying us. I had to beat the beans out of him with kindness, and all them people got all the drinks they wanted.
BRYANT: Even though you were up there, trapped in that tube with him.
ANDERSON: Oh, but he wasn’t going nowhere. That’s the flavor that the airlines gave me – how you turn madness into happiness, how to smile when I didn’t want to, how to give even though I was exhausted. It taught me how to always rise to the top. By the time you got off that plane, you were smiling inside. And so my life became delicious.
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INSKEEP: Beat the beans out of them.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Beat the beans out of them.
INSKEEP: So many lines I want to remember – madness into happiness. Darrell Anderson and fellow former flight attendant Merribeth Bryant in Denver, Colorado. Their conversation is archived at the Library of Congress.
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