Harry W Frahm - ABOVE AND BELOW THE CLOUDS

The grouchy man in the back muttered the next destination to Herbert, who was singing in his mind, “We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,” trying to keep a straight face, knowing it would be seen by his passenger in the rearview mirror.

He tried to visualize how he would look in the uniform of this prestigious airline, when he was suddenly interrupted by the voice coming from the back seats.

“Fourteen days!”

“Yes sir, I know!” he answered, driving past the Gänsemarkt. He made a half right turn towards Dammtor, when he saw a truck standing there in his way. He slowed down and hit the brakes, nothing happened, so to speak, because a lot of things transpired. The sedan was sliding very slowly over an ice patch. Herbert tried to simulate anti-lock brakes, (which cars did not have at that time,) by pumping the brake pedal tenderly in a rapid succession, to no avail. The vehicle was determined to kiss the huge bumper of this monster truck very gently. It didn’t even produce a noisy impact. The grill over the cooler in the front of the car was history, nicely bent inward. No damage to the truck, of course. As a matter of fact, the truck driver never left his cabin to investigate. In all probability, he wasn’t even aware of an accident, it was much too soft to be noticed. But it was not soft enough for the Opel Kapitän. Both Colonel and Herbert investigated the damage, while the truck disappeared over the horizon. A few onlookers joined to see what happened, but left moments later. It was too cold to stand still for a long period, and there was no blood anyhow, so why waste precious time. The Colonel must have felt a big loss at this moment, sort of an insult to the British crown and their possessions.

He growled at Herbert:

“You are fired!”

(And that’s a long time before Donald Trump made it a famous phrase, on the TV show The apprentice. Or did the “Donald” copy Herbert’s Colonel?)

Surely, the two statements: “Fourteen days” and “You are fired” were not more than one minute apart from each other. How fast the scenes change on the stage of the real world. It is amazing! On the one hand, he was happy to be free to start now with the Americans. On the other hand, he was, somehow, insulted by the inconsideration of this British officer. Surely he must have had some understanding why this accident had happened. And surely should comprehend; there was nothing Herbert could have done to avoid the calamity.

Regardless, Herbert didn’t know to either laugh/cry.

This show was set on “FAST FORWARD”.

For sure it will take some time to digest.

The engine of the car purred normally, and this twosome continued to go as planned. Upon arrival at the “Beatty Barracks” (Mackensen Kaserne) in Alsterdorf, where the garage and the officer’s quarters were located, Herbert informed his foreman of the incident, and the fact that he was immediately fired. He couldn’t contain himself to mention the news about his future job, which, to his surprise, produced congratulations by his coworkers.

All of this happened on the first Thursday of the New Year 1955.

Early the next morning he was at the Pan Am office to announce his immediate availability. When he talked to his new boss and informed him that he would be able so start coming Monday. He was surprised, the DTSM suggested starting work the next day, which was, a Saturday. At that time, Saturdays were 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM working days in Germany.

Gladly Herbert agreed, and so his 33-years career began with this airline.

The familiarization training to become a Reservation-Representative started full swing precisely on the dot at 09:00 AM that Saturday morning. Airlines, like railroads, are trying to be very punctual.

Frau Grulenska was assigned to present and inform Herbert of procedures and material important to his new job. She did it with greatest professional finesse and too fast a speed; his head was spinning after a few hours of having words fired at him in fast succession, like a machine gun, while she was coffee-sipping and chain-smoking. A big pile of printed matter, with instructions assembled in front of him and explanations were given at the same time. He tried to absorb all this, like a sponge. It must be a test of his stamina and ability to comprehend, he told himself. She pursued relentlessly to finish the whole program on this half day, what would take about two days otherwise, so it seemed. At 12:50 PM she handed him a book with phrases used to communicate within the company on Teleprompters. Computers were not available locally. The one and only computer for this airline was located at the Pan Am-Building, New York City. This monster occupied two stories and handled all worldwide business for this company.

“Oh, one more item,” she added. “A list of abbreviations for the airport and/or Cities in the world, you MUST remember.”

These are three letter codes, like: NYC for New York City, or CHI for Chicago, easy stuff, but what is: IDL, LGA, NEW and EZE?

That is Idlewild (Now JFK, John F. Kennedy, one of the three airports for New York, namely: LGA for La Guardia and NEW for Newark in New Jersey.)

And: Ezeisa, the airport for Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This is some list, for the whole world!

“Take it all home and study it over the weekend so you will be a full time, complete member of our office on Monday!”

“Monday?” Herbert thought. What do they expect from me? But he didn’t say anything.

The next ten minutes were spent shooting the breeze and precisely at 1:00 PM, she stood up, shook his hand, wished him good luck, a pleasant weekend and was gone.

“A pleasant weekend?” My foot!

Herbert was bamboozled from this NIAGRA FALLS of info and sat there for a little while. He collected the pile of data and climbed up the stairs from the office in the basement to find a coworker waiting for him, with key in hand, to lock up the establishment to start his weekend.

The day and a half to read, understand and remember everything, was indeed no picnic and Herbert showed up there on Monday with a throbbing headache, wondering if every one of his coworkers had to go through this learning process in such a short time. He found out later, it was not so. It was Frau Grulenska’s understanding of what she was supposed to do.

“Pan American World Airways, good morning,” he heard himself saying, answering the telephone at the reservations center. He was sitting at a round table, like King Arthur, only much smaller. As a matter of fact, only three other colleagues were placed at this device being equipped with two rows of compartments on a large Lazy Susan. Each box represented a flight and had a cardboard in it to hold the names of confirmed passengers with their names and contact information, telephone number or address and travel agent, if applicable. The entries were done in pencil because of constant changes. These pencils had a short life span. The erasers at the top end were used up much faster than the writing end. This office had the exclusive control of operation for flights from Hamburg to Berlin. Anyone in the world had to contact this place to get their passengers confirmed. Berlin controlled flights in the opposite direction. London took care of Europe and New York for the rest of the planet Earth with their huge monster computer. As mentioned before, most of the communication was done per teletype, some by means of the telephone. Pan Am’s Intragerman operation was a colossal money maker with these flights. There was an obstacle, called the Berlin Wall, and the only competitions were Air France and British European Airways with much less flights. No other airline was permitted to fly over the Russian occupied territory. German travelers did not forget the Berlin Airlift where Pan Am had the most airplanes dedicated to it, and their appreciation manifested itself in choosing to fly with this airline.