Working a first-class flight with Eddie Gold was guaranteed to be a CRAZY day. As much as I loved flying with him – he terrified me.

Back in the ’70s, traveling businessmen wore suits and ties. Good manners and some formality still existed. Not with Eddie. After any trip with him, I feared for my job, but I would have laughed for six or eight hours. Eddie was incorrigible.

He was a Brooklyn boy with the predictable accent. When native New Yorkers boarded, he spotted and heard them immediately and began his disrespectful teasing. They called him Eddie, and he flippantly called them by their first names. They loved it. I’d have had a permanent letter in my personnel file. Eddie had no limits.

One memorable dinner flight, we served a full first-class cabin – 16 passengers. During cocktail hour, I asked each passenger for their entree choice of fresh carved prime rib or lobster tail. The meal trays, lined with white linen, boasted china, and stemmed wine glasses. Each bread plate held a dinner roll and butter beside the shrimp cocktail holding center stage as we poured from our selection of fine wines.

I was setting up the trays in the galley as Eddie made round trips serving each individual. He was headed back to the galley when one of his New York ladies grabbed him. “Eddie, I didn’t order this shrimp. I ordered the beef.”

“No, my darling,” he fawned, “that is just your appetizer. We’ll bring your beef after the next course, the salad. The beef is your entree.” He was muttering when he returned to the galley for the next trays.

A man in the first row of coach pulled aside the curtain and snapped his fingers at Eddie. Three different times. Finally, Eddie delivered a pat of butter to him saying, “If you spread this on your fingers and thumb, it will stop that clicking noise.” OMG.

On the next trip he was accosted again about the shrimp. “Oh Eddie, I ordered lobster – this shrimp is NO lobster.” He grabbed her shrimp appetizer, and walked to the front of the cabin.

He put the plate down for a second, clapped his hands, and barked “Attention! Attention up here! It seems many of you have never eaten in a nice restaurant. This shrimp cocktail is your appetizer,” as he held up the dish. “The appetizer is served first. AFTER the shrimp, we will serve you salad. THEN, and NOT UNTIL THEN, you will receive your main course – the entree, spelled E-N-T-R-E-E. GOT IT? Now be good boys and girls and eat your shrimp cocktail. We’ll be around with more wine if you’re very, very good.” Honest to God. He said that.

Or something like that. I was listening in the galley, opening more wine, trying not to split a gut. They laughed, loved it, and thought it was part of the entertainment.

We made Caesar salad from scratch in a large bowl centered on the aisle cart. We then reset the cart to carve the big prime rib roast, 5 minutes out of the oven. Eddie was carving the roast while I faced the passengers, adding the duchess potatoes, and serving the plates. On Eddie’s second slice he hit the carving fork in the roast with the knife, knocking the roast off the cart. With a very heavy kerplunk, the roast rolled partway down the aisle. Eddie bent down, speared the monster meat with the carving fork, and walked it toward me saying, “Mrs. O’Brien, would you please get the fresh roast from the galley?”

I, of course, knew there was no other roast. Neither was there a local bistro at 37,000 feet, where we could grab another. I looked at him, incredulous for a split second, recovered, and took the heavily-laden fork along with the pot of au jus to the galley. I heard Eddie babbling as he poured more wine, “She’ll be right back. It takes a minute to prepare the other roast.”

I was trying not to have a major coronary in the galley. He’d thrown me to the wolves. Anxiously, I wiped the roast down with a damp linen towel, removing a little floor crud and a few hairs. I rolled it again in the au jus, and decorated it, face down, tucking in parsley sprigs and put it back on a freshly washed tray.

“Mr. Gold, your second roast!” I declared. “Please be careful – there’s no backup for this one!” We really pushed the wine that day. And served double liqueurs with coffee and dessert.

As on every trip I flew with Eddie, everyone departed happily. The women kissed him goodbye as I smiled in the background, hoping no one turned us in to management.

He was hilarious. Irreverent. Impossible and wonderful. I don’t know how he kept his job. People have told his stories for years, even after he left Brooklyn for his eternal rest.

Eddie is still a legend.

Marcy O’Brien can be reached at Moby.32@hotmail.com