Occasionally, I give speeches, usually about my good old days working for an airline. My title for this 25-minute tell-all speech is “Blue Skies and Barf Bags.” The title pretty much says it all: It WAS WONDERFUL. Except for those few yucky moments when it wasn’t.

If you are under 50, you probably don’t remember many of those good old days. There are so many flight crew stories; they range from the hilarious to adventurous, from some sad memories to dark humor. I think the dark humor was what kept us going on the few tough days.

As usual, while preparing for this luncheon speech, I went through my reference files to make sure I had included my best tales. And I found, deep within my files, a gathering of aviation sayings that I hadn’t seen in ages. Naturally, I had to sit and read through them. I laughed out loud, remembering some of the circumstances and some of the wise-cracking pilots who said them. Good memories.

I had written down some of the old sayings after hearing them so often. Others were from the old salt Navy pilots, the gang that my late husband flew with. Usually, the “jet jockeys” had the darkest sayings. They traveled at the fastest speeds and pushed the envelope the most.

Actually, after the stories I heard, they earned their right to swagger.

You see, Navy jet pilots have to learn to land on an aircraft carrier. That is, they learn to land after taking off from an aircraft carrier. Neither one is a walk in the park.

We’ve all seen films taken in the daylight, in calm seas, with crackerjack pilots whose tailhook always catches the first wire. And it looks difficult, because it is. But the films we don’t see are the reality of night landings.

First, they have to find the carrier. Hopefully, its lights aren’t shrouded in fog. Picture a lit-up postage stamp on a black background. Winds are high and the sea is roiling, causing the deck to pitch a bit. Hopefully the high winds won’t buffet the plane too much as the pilot tries to keep his wings level, his approach even – while he watches his fuel gauge. Is he (or she) nervous? Probably, but they have to bury the nerves because they have a serious job to do. They somehow manage to land the big bird, relying on their training and guts.

After a few nightmare scenarios, when they’ve actually stared death in the face, they learn to joke about it. I think the most often quoted funny comment must have originally come from a pilot after a carrier landing: A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is one after which the plane can be used again.

A few of the many more in my file:

¯ Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

¯ There are old pilots. There are bold pilots. But there are no old bold pilots.

¯ Learn from the mistakes of others. You won’t live long enough to make them all yourself.

It’s easy to be that cavalier – that sassy – when the only life involved is your own. It’s a little different when there might be a few hundred souls sitting behind the cockpit door.

Yes, the airline pilots, many of whom were ex-Navy pilots, had their own version of swagger. I also found these airline quotes in my file:

¯ You know you’ve landed with the wheels up when it takes full power to taxi to the gate.

¯ It’s always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

¯ Flying isn’t dangerous. Crashing is what’s dangerous.

I know that the idea of an airliner crashing is why people are afraid of flying. Back in the day, we often dealt with terrified passengers. If we did our job right, and they didn’t consume too many Manhattans, we had a chance of making them feel comfortable. Often our experienced captains took breaks on long flights and came into the cabin for some reassuring hellos. Sadly, 9/11 changed that.

Frankly, I don’t think many people fear flying any more. Airline crashes are a very rare headline. If we all maintained our cars the way airliners are maintained, we’d never have to buy another one.

Back in my “Blue Skies and Barf Bags” era, only 20% of the American public had ever flown. Today only 20% have never flown. The industry has become a normal part of American life, the accepted alternative to driving.

So, when you do head for the airport, look for those blue skies. If they’re not visible on takeoff, they quickly will be when your intrepid captain flies you above the clouds. After that, you should have no need for those barf bags. BTW, they don’t keep them in the cockpit.

Marcy O’Brien is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. She can be reached at Moby.32@hotmail.com.