Take a walk with us along the paths behind the library (weather permitting—otherwise we’ll use the track inside the Millcreek Recreation Center); then join in our book discussion.
Come join our monthly meeting of the Millcreek Walking Book Club, a collaboration between The Millcreek Branch of the County Library and The Millcreek Recreation Center. We will meet in the Storytime room of the library then take a walk along the paths behind the library (weather permitting—otherwise we’ll use the track inside the Millcreek Recreation Center.) We will then meet back in the Storytime room to discuss the book.
Come Fly the World: the jet-age story of the women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke.
A lively, unexpected portrait of the jet-age stewardesses serving on iconic Pan Am airways between 1966 and 1975.
Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up
Required to have a college degree, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3" and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire. Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life.
Cooke brings to life the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage.
Be sure to wear comfortable shoes and bring a water bottle.
