Chapter One - The Rocking Chair
(Part Two)

In the meantime, I interviewed at several other carriers.  At Western Airlines, I failed the physical due to what pilots refer to as “cufflink-itis.”  My normal blood pressure is very healthy and on the low side.  But when I met their doctor, known among applicants as the “Nazi Doctor,” I was terrified.  He was big, mean, nasty-looking, ill-tempered and some of the stuff he did really was painful.  By the time we got to the blood-pressure check I was a wreck.  No second chances, either.  I was booted right out.  I’ve never had high blood pressure before or since.

At long-gone Texas International, I was considered overweight by eleven pounds.  They were using the same weight requirement they used for stewardesses (I don’t think were “flight attendants” yet.)  They gave me a chance to lose the weight— about a week and a half.  I lost eight of the pounds but they still kicked me out.  I was faint from hunger by the time I arrived, having scarcely eaten for a week, but they didn’t care.  “Rules are rules,” they told me solemnly.  I went and had a hot fudge sundae and, just for good measure, a nice, big piece of chocolate cake.  

At TWA, I was ushered into a room with about thirty guys.  “Okay, everybody take off your shirts and I’ll be back in about five minutes,” barked an entirely unfriendly nurse.  I was at the back of the room and every guy in the room waited until she left, then turned around and leered at me.  What was I supposed to do?  At least I’d put on nice under-things.  I was much less modest then than I am now, so I took off my blouse and just held it in front of myself—arms crossed.  No worse than the top of a two-piece bathing suit, I tried to convince myself.

“All right!” cheered the guys.  The nurse made a second appearance, and when she finally got to me, she said, “Not you!  I didn’t mean you!  Don’t you have any sense?”   Apparently I didn’t.

She led me to the examination room without bothering to have me put my blouse back on.  I got up onto the table where I was hooked up to all those electrodes they use for EKGS.  And now we had a problem.  I told this crabby old nurse I was extremely ticklish, but got no response.  “Hey, cut it out!” I cried when she started wiggling one of the contacts through some gooey liquid on my side to make it stick better.  She didn’t respond, but just kept going, and I started giggling, then outright laughing.  She never cracked a smile.  I actually smacked her hand away once or twice when I couldn’t stand it anymore and she sternly told me to get a grip, but I couldn’t.

In fact, I laughed so hard I fell right off the table, yanking all the cords off of me in the process.  She was not amused, to say the least.  I was horrified, mortified and all the rest, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  I had meant what I said:  I’m ticklish in the extreme.  I have no idea how we ever got through this, but eventually we must have.  Thankfully, I seem to have blocked it out of my memory.  I was sure I wouldn’t be offered a job after this sorry display of complete lack of self-control, but surprisingly, a job offer did come.  It read, “Dear Mr. Getline” and invited me to a class which started right around Thanksgiving.  This was in the late seventies.  Wow!  Trans World Airlines!  I certainly liked the sound of that!

My elation lasted until Christmas, when the second letter came.  “Dear Mr. Getline,” it started, “We regret to inform you that your class has been cancelled due to impending furloughs.  Thank you for your interest.”  Something like that, very dismissive.

I got a similar letter from Hughes Airwest in the same time frame, but at least they realized I wasn’t “Mr. Getline” but “Miss Getline.”

At Flying Tigers I had to terminate my interview when the personnel guy made a highly sexual pass toward me.  It was just him and me in the room, and I felt I had no choice but to walk out.  Years later, when I became acquainted with Norah O’Neill, Tigers’ first female pilot, she told me she knew exactly whom I meant, and the physical description she gave me matched.  He made a pass at her, too, but only after she was already hired.  By the way, although my own career has been wonderful in many ways and disastrous in other ways, my airline life seems like a walk in the park next to Norah’s, as related in her own book “Flying Tigress.”

I never did interview at Delta, but I’d decided what to do about the rocking chair if I ever did.  The rocking chair?  Yes, there was (and may still be) an organization or two devoted to helping pilots prepare for airline interviews.  One of the notes about Delta was the fact that there was a rocking chair in the room where the psychological interview took place, but nobody knew the significance.  Was one supposed to rock to show they were relaxed and confident?  Not rock to show they were calm?  Nobody knew.  I had made up my mind that, since I like rocking chairs and always rock, I would rock if I ever interviewed at Delta.   “Always best to be oneself,” was my philosophy in general.

Years prior, when I was still in the Army, Delta’s personnel director had told me they would “nevah, evah hiah a woman pilot.”  Of course they ultimately did, but I was never to interview there.  Once again, furloughs seemed to be in the way when I was finally ready and qualified to interview.  I did hear about the rocking chair, though.   I’d heard pilots obsessing and agonizing endlessly over that rocking chair as we crossed paths many times on the interview trail.  What I eventually heard was that it was left behind in an office when a secretary quit the company.  The rocking chair had simply been moved into the pilot psychological interview room when nobody claimed it.  It had no significance at all.