Muammar Al Khadafi

But only on Sunday nights on ABC at 9 PM CT.

As a former airline employee, I was definitely looking forward to seeing this show when it started on September 25 but was tied up with other more pressing business in DC.  

Caught the tail end of the 'We'll Always Have Paris' episode last Sunday and finally took some time to sit down and watch the pilot and the full first episode and fell in love with the show.

Pan Am is set in 1963 and follows a group of Pan Am pilots and flight attendants as they live, love and work at 30,000 feet and on their layovers.  In some cases they are front line covert soldiers in the Cold War. 

It tells some of the story in flashback form, as it did in the pilot episode when we see Captain Dean Lowery flashback to a 1961 flight from Cuba in which they flew out the released Bay of Pigs invasion prisoners with Bridget showing up at the last moment.   There was another in which Laura is shown leaving her fiancé Greg at the altar on her wedding day with big sis Kate's help..  


We get to watch Maggie Ryan, sisters Kate and Laura Cameron, and Colette Valois endure all the hassles of being flight attendants during that glamorous era of jet travel such as weight checks, sexism, the no marriage rule and the joys and pains of dealing with the public such as drunken businessmen who think grabbing the flight attendant comes with the price of their ticket as happened to Maggie in the 'We'll Always Have Paris' episode .



Trilingual Kate finds herself being recruited as a covert intelligence operative while dealing with the fact her fresh out of training baby sister has become a celebrity due to a LIFE magazine shot of her in her Pan Am uniform.  

Maggie is on probation for not wearing a girdle and was reinstated when Bridget quit.  She isn't afraid to test the rules and her Pan Am supervisors last nerves. 

Colette is a French flight attendant with a tragic past that has yet to be revealed, but we do know from the pilot episode she discovers that a former lover of hers is on her New York to London flight with his wife and child.   

Oops.  Can you say awkward?

Captain Dean Lowrey is in love with his girlfriend Bridget Pierce, a British flight attendant who was the purser on his crew until she had her MI6 cover blown on an undercover assignment.in which she failed to follow orders and was forced to quit Pan Am and vacate her London flat. 

Dean is searching for her and is mystified as to what happened to her.   In his search for answers to the mystery,  he isn't getting any straight answer out of the people that can shed light on what happened to Bridget or her current whereabouts.

Interestingly enough, the Association of Flight Attendants released a statement after the Pan Am pilot episode aired:     

"The premiere episode of the new Pan Am drama on ABC may be a nostalgic escape to the days before deregulation, but it also highlighted the myriad of social injustices overcome by the strong women who shaped a new career. Weight checks, girdle checks, the no marriage rule, sexism, gender discrimination, racism – all of this was challenged by intelligent, visionary women who helped to usher in the call for social change throughout the country and around the world." 

That they did, and I have much love for the flight attendants of mine and any airline and what they had to endure during my Air Marshal days and now.

But I'm still going to chill out and watch this drama that gives us a glimpse of what pre-deregulated air travel was like on not only one of the iconic airlines in the United States, one that has a deep impact in our popular culture as well.  .

NFL pioneer Al Davis, the iconic owner of the Oakland Raiders has passed away at age 82   .

Love him or hate him, the mark that Brooklyn, NY born Al Davis left on the game of football and the NFL is undeniable. 

In 1963 he became the coach and general manager of a struggling AFL franchise that was playing at a high school stadium and finished 1-13 the year before he arrived.   He turned them into the intimidating force that was the winningest team in professional sports during the 60s', 70's and 80's and claimed three Super Bowl championships in 1976, 1980 and 1983.

If there's a controversial event or iconic play in NFL lore, the Raiders are involved.   Whether it's the 'Heidi Game', the 'Immaculate Reception', the 'Holy Roller', 'Red Right 88', or the 'Tuck Rule Game', the history of the NFL and the history of the game thanks to Al Davis has an unmistakable silver and black thread and swagger.  



And yeah, some of the innovations and rule changes you're familiar with in modern day NFL football are the result of the Raiders in many cases, too.  

When your team's offense employs a 'vertical' passing game or plays 'bump and run' coverage, thank Al Davis and his Raiders for popularizing it. 

He was one of the few owners left in the NFL who made his money strictly from the income of the team and was an equal opportunity employer when it came to finding the best players and people to play for, coach and run his organization. 

He was the first to actively scout and mine HBCU's for football talent.  He was the first to draft an African-American quarterback, hire an African-American head coach in the modern era with his 1988 hire of Art Shell in 1988, the second Latino coach in Tom Flores, and the first female executive/CEO in Amy Trask.   

And speaking of hiring coaches, he was responsible for the trend of hiring young coaches.  He had some great ones such as Hall of Famer John Madden, Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden and Lane Kiffin, but as they will all tell you, the real coach of the Oakland Raiders was Al Davis.


In 1966 he became the last commissioner of the AFL and aggressively pursued NFL star players even as Lamar Hunt and other AFL owners were negotiating terms for a merger of the two leagues favorable to the AFL.   Davis' bellicose posturing and aggressive stances led to a common draft, the AFL-NFL Championship game that later became the Super Bowl and by 1970 the unified league.

One of the things he didn't get was becoming commissioner of the merged NFL, which went to Pete Rozelle   That led to a decades long feud between the two men, which fed into the Raiders 'us against the world' chip on their shoulders team mentality.  He sued the NFL and won the right to move the team to LA in the early 80's, then moved them back to Oakland in 1995.  

But his feuds and innovations reshaped pro football over the last half century and fuelled its rise to become the most popular sport in the US.

“He is a true legend of the game whose impact and legacy will forever be part of the NFL,” current NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.

One of the larger than life iconic personalities and owners of the league is gone, and will definitely be missed.