Temple Grandin by Anita Lesko

Author:Anita Lesko
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Future Horizons
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

Photo courtesy of Temple Grandin

Photo courtesy of Temple Grandin

Photo courtesy of Temple Grandin

CHAPTER 16

Fear of Flying

Temple is walking into an airplane three, four, sometimes five times a week! Now she sleeps during flights, or catches up on reading. No more white knuckles.

“When I was in my twenties, I was really scared to fly. There was a situation where we had to make an emergency landing, and it took me about three years to get over that. I was a white-knuckle flyer during those years!” I asked, “How do you go from white-knuckle flyer to all the time you now spend in airplanes?” Her reply was, “I had to make planes go from scary to interesting, so I learned all about how planes work.” There’s that logical side surfacing again.

“Here’s what happened. It was my third flight. I was coming home from the ranch, and a jet airplane was still a novelty. That was my first time flying alone. My first flight was with my roommate, the second time I flew with my aunt, but the third time I was by myself. I was actually having fun, listening to the music and anticipating being served my meal. Back then, everyone dressed up in really nice clothes to go on a plane. I had on a white flowered summer dress; I had to wear dresses to go on a plane! And there were headphones that were like a stethoscope to listen to music while flying. I was sitting on the right side of the plane, about three quarters of the way back. The next thing I know, the plane lurches to the side while we’re at thirty thousand feet. We were over Kansas when it happened, and we ended up landing in Salina, Kansas. The plane lurched to the right, and all the trays flew up into the air. They hadn’t served me yet, only half the plane had been served. The flight attendants started throwing the trays on the floor and yelling for everyone to put their seatbelts on, and to prepare for emergency landing. Emergency landing! The plane was then descending really fast, and we had no explanation for what was going on. I was sure I was going to die. We landed with the pilot jamming on the brakes and fish-tailing down the runway. The plane stopped, and the doors opened to the slide chutes being deployed. The flight attendants started yelling, ‘Abandon plane! Abandon plane! There’s a bomb on the plane! Once you hit the ground, start running and don’t look back! Just keep running!’”

Temple’s voice was all excited as she went on, “That was back in the day when there was no overhead storage bin, just a shelf. I had my bag with me that I had my cameras in, my two prized possessions. They grabbed it out of my hands and flung it into the galley. I jumped out of the door and down the slide I went; then I ran. Finally, we were all standing

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