TWA — Story Time

By Lauren Estelle Jones

I remember being roughly 10 yrs old when my dad, his then girlfriend Wendy, and I took a trip to the USA together. My paternal grandmother, Nanny Reenee had moved there in the 60’s for love, but loathe to visit the desolate and frankly loveless town of Ironwood, (MI), my father arranged for her to meet us for a Las Vegas trip sandwiched in between two NYC legs.

Nanny Reenee was seamlessly integrated into Las Vegas with her Liz Taylor wigs, black shiny onesies, gold belts and accessories, topped off with a smattering of glittery stars plastered on to six thick layers of varying degrees of orange and purple make up. After kissing her you would be left with smeared rainbow patches on your face and clothes, and a strong smell of sickly perfume would permeate your aura for hours to come. I was not close with Nanny, partly due to the actual distance between us, but even at that young age I think I was aware of the fact that she had abandoned my dad to follow love abroad when he was just 7 yrs old, something that he holds no resentment for, but I seem to find deeply and core cuttingly offensive on his behalf. The excitement of arriving at the Disney like MGM Grand Hotel was marred by learning that I would be sharing a room with Nanny Reene. I had visions of her trying to bond with me over child pageant style makeovers and suffocating in old lady perfume and diamond dust. What I hadn’t imagined or prepared for was her vocally charged night terrors, and waking paranoid delusions that she was being followed, our room was bugged and that the hotel staff were out to get her. Being a parent now and thinking about the safety and cost concerns of a third room, I can see why my dad made me endure this for three nights before finally relenting and getting me my own room, but at the time I was far more scared of what was happening inside than any of the debauchery that I couldn’t even have imagined going on outside my room and in the city itself.

Although it has all the lurid lights and fairground glamour on the outside, Las Vegas is not very kid friendly. I couldn’t walk more than a few metres through the hotel without being told to “move away from the gambling area” or even more ridiculously to produce my ID every time I leant against a slot machine by accident. It was torturous not to be able to touch all those shining lights and buttons and to be constantly moved along. One thing that I was permitted to do though was spend time at the ostentatious and oversized pool area. It was really more of a waterpark with waterfalls, palm trees and four or five pools interconnected by something called a “lazy river” which my nan would spend hours going round and round in. Whilst we were sunbathing, every half an hour or so she’d pop by again, lounging in her rubber ring, floppy hat over her wig, cocktail in hand and the other one waving and cooing in her Fargo-esque by way of Petticoat Lane accent; “heloooOOOoo, coooOOEEeeee, look at meEEEee!!!”, as if it were a revelation each time. Inevitably she would need to eat or use the bathroom so would get one of the attendants to help her ashore again where she would plonk herself down ready to refuel for the rest of the days lazing. It was on one of these breaks that Nanny went to sit down on a lounger and it collapsed up on to her, swallowing her up like a crocodile, leaving only her arms and legs flailing about from the sides. My dad, Wendy and I all rushed to her rescue, each trying to pull her up and unlock the apparatus she had been devoured by. The scene replays in my head as a silent movie with Charlie Chaplin style music and dramatically overacted gestures; a stick thin trio trying to free this fairly rotund lady. First my dad… in an extremely rare break from his full suits and overcoats; wearing swimming trunks, his shining white translucent skin making the white socks pulled half way up his skinny calfs barely decipherable …holding on to Nanny’s legs. Then tiny Wendy… who only ate a snickers bar a day, poker straight bleached blonde bob over her perilously petite and tanned frame, wearing her current uniform of men’s blue boxer shorts and wife beater vest…holding on to dad’s waist. Then a lanky, bony, androgynous looking waif child… skinny bones jones they called me… trying to add a little extra strength by clinging on to what there was of Wendy’s waist. The three of us huffing and puffing and really trying our best, my nan screaming and wailing “get me outtaaAAGGHHH heeEEERrre!” but to no avail. We all collapsed in a heap from our efforts as two attendants came running in to save the day and free her from the grips of the malevolent contraption. Of course she thought it was all a conspiracy and wasn’t so keen on the pool area after that.

Soon it was time for us to part with Nanny and we put her on a flight back to Michigan before boarding our own TWA flight headed for New York. Whilst sat on the runway waiting to take off, one of the stewards came on and asked a man to get off the flight. From what we understood, he had been on a waiting list and had been allowed on when the flight turned out not to be full but now the original guest had turned up and they wanted him off. He was refusing and two security staff had to come and physically drag him off the plane. It was a pretty nasty thing to see, they were not treating him with any dignity or respect and it didn’t really bode well for how they might look after us. Eventually we took off but only 10 mins into the already turbulent flight, an announcement came on the tannoy that we would be turning back to Las Vegas. Without warning or reason, the oxygen masks dropped down and we were all told to get into the brace position. People were screaming and crying and clinging onto loved ones or strangers as we started the fast and furious descent back down to the lights of Vegas. The stewardesses were trying to calm people whilst unsuccessfully trying to hide the terrified and harrowed look in their eyes. Next an ear-splitting roar came from under us in the belly of the plane, followed by a mechanical screeching so loud and unknown. I looked at Wendy with tears running down her face, my dad trying to hide his fear to calm her and reassure me, I looked down out of the window and saw fire engines lining the runway. We were about to die. They knew it. The rest of the adults of this plane knew it. I was certain of it.

The plane thudded down to the ground, bounced several times and a row of fire engines on either side blared water at us, a high density version of the dreaded car wash, blinded by streams and deafened by rollers. Once we finally halted, the knowing moment of silence was broken by cheers and whoops and hugs of vitality and a collective sense of relief, we had survived, we were all alive! It transpired that shortly after taking off, the pilots realised that the wheels of the plane were malfunctioning and the roars and screeches that we had heard were the emergency set being manually rolled out. The pilots surely had no time in the moment to explain to us or their staff what was actually happening, leaving everyone on board reciting last rites.

Lauren with her Nan, Dad and her Nan’s cousin Celie

Those other than the fainthearted boarded the next flight just a few hours later. This time we made it without a hitch and landed in New York with only emotional scars to show. The final good will gesture made by TWA, (dubbed The Worst Airline by my dad), was to send our luggage to the wrong hotel. After finally locating where it was, we dragged ourselves into a yellow taxi across town to collect it. Dad and Wendy told me to wait in the car whilst they went inside to retrieve it. The moment that they entered the hotel I saw the driver reach for his Gatorade bottle, take a swig then pour the rest of the contents out of his window. I thought this to be quite strange, I longed for those sugary drinks and even though I had had a fair share of them myself on this trip, I knew that I would never have discarded a drop knowing that they would soon be banned again when at home with my mum. My ears spiked up as rigid as my back when what was happening dawned on me. All I could see was the back of his fat balding head, a visual to pair with the sound of a strong and steady stream, the smell of ammonia and then a sigh of relief before I watched him pour the dark yellow liquid out of the window. Moments later he was outside helping put the luggage into the trunk and I stayed silent, confused and thoroughly disgusted for the rest of the journey. It was only after he pulled away and we were safely inside our hotel room that I told my dad, much to his horror, what had transpired.

I’m sure that the rest of the trip was a dream of ice cream, cd and clothes shopping, late nights, room service, teen magazines and tv shows that I couldn’t wait to brag to my friends about when I got back home. America and its non stop consumerist culture was something to desire and get excited about back then, nothing like the hot mess and embarrassment it has become. But I don’t really remember that good stuff for some reason, maybe I was a brat, too spoilt to have noticed how lucky I was, or maybe it’s just that the psyche chooses to mostly engrain the bad, the absurd, and the scary.

As a caveat to this story, I think that I should say that Nanny Reene is now 91 years old, she lost her husband almost 13 years ago and has been living on her own in the weather harsh Midwest ever since. Over the last two years she has beat cancer with invasive radiotherapy, had both hips replaced at separate times, had major dental surgery, a further operation from a complication due to the cancer treatment and lived through the loneliness of Covid as a single elderly person. For the past few months she has been in and out of a rehabilitation centre where each time she has had to be completely in isolation for 14 days at a time with her food being pushed through a door on a tray. A few weeks ago we organised sending her something called a Grandpad, (basically a OAP friendly version of an iphone/pad) so that we could FaceTime her as it still seems uncertain of when we will be able to travel to the US to visit, or more likely bring her home to the UK. We have been video chatting almost daily and she is still vibrant, full face of make up, her hair now bleached white, her mind sharp and her humour in tact. In the past few years, I have an absolute new found admiration for her and her tenacity, and although I’m still unable to reconcile with some of the choices she has made in her past, I am entirely grateful to be bred from her strong and determined stock.