Facing Your Fear

In 1978 I was working for a local typesetter in Lafayette when a young woman came in to install our new typesetting system. My eyes lit up and I asked her how long she had worked for the company.

She told me she had  been with them for two years and she got to travel quite a bit. As soon as she left, I called her office and asked if they had any openings. They did! They hired me within a month and sent me to Los Angeles to be trained.

I loved travelling throughout Northern California but when I had to travel to Alamogordo, NM. The flight was routed through El Paso and happened to be during a worst thunderstorm I had ever experienced.

The flight was on a 6-place passenger plane and I was fortunate enough to site next to a commercial pilot who was hopping a flight to get to his next leg. He was amazing. He held my hand the entire flight and tried to keep me distracted from the storm.

At one point the plane dropped 200 feet and I thought for sure we weren’t going to make it.  But the pilot kept telling me it would be just fine.

When we finally landed he had to hold my arm walking down the stairway and into the terminal.

Before he released my hand he said “Honey, the only way to get over your fear is to get your pilot’s license.”