“Highway To The Sky” with Lola Reid Allin
Show Notes:
You might say Lola Reed Allin is a trailblazer. She is certainly an adventurer, a traveler, a pioneer, and a role model to women who work in male-dominated fields. As one of the very few female commercial airline pilots in Canada, Lola escaped an abusive marriage to find a life where she not only survived, but thrived.
Lola is not just a commercial airline pilot. She is also an author, an award winning photographer, a SCUBA diver, and a speaker. She is open and frank about her experiences, but despite the hardships that she faced personally and professionally, she offers grace and kindness along with encouragement and hope. Her recent memoir, Highway to the Sky, details her story of resilience.
Resources:
Follow Lola on Facebook and Instagram
Transcript:
Eddie Rester 00:01 I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly 00:02
I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight.
Eddie Rester 00:04
Today our guest is Lola Reid Allin. She's written a book, "Highway to the Sky," and in the book, she tells her life story of how she became one of the very few commercial female pilots.
Chris McAlilly 00:16
She has a story that's got a lot of twists and turns and some very difficult things that she dealt with in her first marriage. We get into that and some of the pain and the wounds and the brokenness that's there, but also some of the redemption, some of the healing, and the life that was on the other side.
Eddie Rester 00:42
She is a pioneer in a lot of different ways in kind of an adventurous, amazingly wondrous, adventurous life that she's had, but she has a keen awareness of the importance of encouraging others, particularly young women, along the journey. She is a commercial female pilot at a time where still, today, there aren't a lot of commercial female pilots.
Chris McAlilly 01:05 Yeah, she said 5%.
Eddie Rester 01:07 5%, and that's been the same percentage since she started flying in the early 1980s.
Chris McAlilly 01:13
Yeah, we learned about some of the ways in which, some of the barriers that she faced, some of the awkward conversations that she had, starting in a profession that was male dominated, and the way she persevered, the way she was courageous and brave, but also some of the grace she offered to other people.
Eddie Rester 01:28 And restraint.
Chris McAlilly 01:29
Yeah, restraint, and yeah, she's an inspiring individual. And we, I love this conversation. I hope that you do too. Thank you for being with us on The Weight podcast. We are grateful that you're listening in. [INTRO] The truth is the world is growing more angry, more bitter, and more cynical. People don't trust one another, and we feel disconnected.
Eddie Rester 01:58
The way forward is not more tribalism. It's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope.
Chris McAlilly 02:10
So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversations with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health, and we want you to be a part of it.
Eddie Rester 02:25
Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO] Well, we're here today with Lola Reid Allin. She's written a book, "Highway to the Sky: an Aviator's Journey," and we're with Lola Reid Allin. She's written a book, "Highway to the Sky: an Aviator's Journey," and we're
Lola Reid Allin 02:43
Well, thank you very much for having me on your show. It's a pleasure.
Eddie Rester 02:46
Yeah, we were joking just a second ago that we were not sure if you're our first Canadian guest or not, but you've lived an amazing life. You you're a pilot. You're a scuba diver. I mean, you've done some amazing things with Mayan, I think, some Mayan ruins and some exploration with that. So what really led you to the point where you said, "I need to put some of this down." What was that encouragement?
Lola Reid Allin 03:16
Well, it was the fact that some of the difficulties I faced as a commercial pilot, a female commercial pilot in the 80s and 90s, were, some of those difficulties were still happening. And I was under the opinion, the impression, that there were a lot more female pilots today, and, therefore, they couldn't be suffering the same injustices that I did, even if those injustices were microaggressions. And I was right. There are a lot more female pilots today, but the number remains relatively constant at about 5%. So when I started flying commercially in 1980, 5% of the world's commercial female pilots, of the world's pilots, again, the world's commercial pilots were female, and that number is about maybe five or 6%. There are a couple exceptions. Porter Airlines in Toronto has 12 to 13% female commercial pilots. And India, they have an average of 13 to 16% of their commercial pilots are female. But in 2014, I saw a Facebook posting by a female captain from WestJet, which is based in Western Canada. And I'm going to summarize, but the note said, "Dear Captain of WestJet, the cockpit of an airplane is no place for a woman. A woman's place is in the home. We are short mothers, not pilots. Respectfully yours, David." That was 2014. So I went, wait a minute, what's going on here? We need to start talking about this. We need to be out there. We need to be role models. We need to be advocates for young girls, young women to say, yes, women can be in non-traditional roles and environments, and we can thrive, and we can succeed. And I don't mean just pilots. This applies to a lot of other fields of aviation. You could be an air traffic controller, a maintenance engineer, and of course, it also applies to other non traditional or STEM careers, such as engineering.
Eddie Rester 04:46 That was 2014.
Lola Reid Allin 04:47
So even though it's about aviation, it applies to any non traditional role, or in any case where there's a unicorn, you might have say, one man in 100 women. Maybe that's not going to happen, but that's how it feels. It feels unusual. Or when I went to Africa for the first time, and I going to talk about that. But Lola, thank you for being with us today. was in Kenya, before I left, they said, you know, try to look inconspicuous on the streets of Nairobi. Right? I'm white and blonde. I bet I'm going to get noticed.
Eddie Rester 05:55
Youre going to get noticed, yeah.
Lola Reid Allin 05:56
No matter what I do. I felt comfortable, by the way, but it's still, it was like, Okay, let's feel different.
Chris McAlilly 06:03
I do think that one of the things that's unique to the profession of aviation is that there's a bit of a romance to it, or mystique to it. Everyone that I've known that has been a pilot has a moment, or they point back to a moment where they fell in love with flying, or you know, there's this kind of sense of they fell in love with the idea of flight. That may or may not be the case for you, but I wonder where did you kind of fall in love with the idea of flying and maybe being a pilot?
Lola Reid Allin 06:37
I have to say, the idea of first formed. I grew up near the Trenton Air Force Base, which is still our major Air Force Base in Canada. And so our house was on the flight path, either approach or departure for the Golden Hawks, which was Canada's first aerobatic team. But, so this was sort of the kernel that started. But then in 1962 my parents took the four of us, that is my mum, dad, and my sister and me, on a flight. Two flights, actually, we had to change planes in Winnipeg. So we flew from Toronto to Winnipeg, changed planes to a smaller turboprop, and flew then to Regina for an annual or semi-annual family gathering. And I loved it. I thought it was the most fun ever. But it was August. We were in a turbo prop. The air was moist and it was unstable, and it was like a ride at the fair. My mother was smoking, chain smoking and throwing up. So of course you could smoke then, right? And I thought it was great. I said something along the line of, "Hey, you know what? This would be so much fun. When I grow up, I want to be a pilot." And my dad could have been a bit more gentle, and said, "Gee, you know it might be fun. I've never seen a female pilot." But instead, he said, "Don't be silly."
Eddie Rester 08:00 Wow.
Lola Reid Allin 08:00
Very put down. "Don't be silly. Girls don't fly airplanes." So my relationship with my dad has never been all that great, but that's an example of how he reacted, generally speaking, and he wasn't the only one. I guess I would have expected or hoped for a more favorable reaction from a father, but mostly people are, quite often people are just surprised, which is unfortunate, too.
Chris McAlilly 08:29
And it does seem like you've overcome quite a bit in your life, not just the comments from your father, but you've been on quite a journey. And you know, part of that journey is into a marriage and one in which you're a survivor of domestic violence. I wonder if you might be willing to share a bit of that story with us.
Lola Reid Allin 08:50
When I met my husband, he was, you know, a downhill ski instructor, a water ski instructor. You know, tall, athletic, blonde, sort of Nordic looking. Great guy, lot of fun. I think there were signs. A friend of mine, and I mentioned that in the book says, you know, "Paul may be drinking a little bit more than he should be," but I remember thinking, oh, you know, I mean, at 20, you have all the answers, right? And we seemed to be getting along really well. So we decided to get married. And it was after our son was born, about a year later. But a year later our son was born, and then maybe when he started to be walking as a toddler, then I started noticing how how angry my husband was. And it wasn't like he came home and beat me up every night. It wasn't and that's why I wanted to call it more bullying. And yes, it is domestic abuse, there was no doubt about it, but it was more of a bully. There was more that the thought of the threat of what might happen, and that's pretty scary, too, considering I'm not six foot two and not an athlete. So he was bigger, taller, stronger, and he was a lot angrier, too. But we couldn't live that way.
Eddie Rester 10:06
Yeah, so as this began to unfold for you, what were some of the ways that maybe you tried to cope, or you tried to... You know, I'm sure you were being told, stay in the marriage, fix the marriage. You can do this. I mean, but what were some of the ways you began to cope as you began to notice that behavior?
Lola Reid Allin 10:31
Of course, it started subtly as well, right? Just little things like him commenting on what I was wearing, and you know, I would say, well, "I'm used to wearing this," and he goes, "Yes, but now you're my wife, and now you're the mother of my child." So there was a bit of a shift there. So mostly I acquiesced in the sense of "Yes, so what? I don't have to wear this top. I can wear something else." But as his drinking started to increase, too, so that was of concern, and he'd have temper tantrums. But I'd seen, by this time, I'd seen his father have temper tantrums too. So I saw where this was coming from. Mostly, I tried to ignore it, tried to talk to him about it, tried to get him to open up. And occasionally he would, as I said, he was a good man who'd lost his way, and I still firmly believe that. But finally, I just, with those temper tantrums, I couldn't live that way. So then for the last two years of our marriage, I mostly was trying to think of ways that I could talk to him and be very serious, and yet I didn't want to make him angry and I didn't want to have any physical retaliation. So it's sort of like walking a fine line. I'd have to be careful of what I said. He'd be upset. He chose to be upset, obviously, right? And so he stole that from me, and I, that's it. That's the last thing you're ever going to steal from me. And even then he said, "Oh, you'll never make it on your own." You know, "You need me." And it's like, I don't think so. I had a job. I don't think I said anything terribly drastic, but he'd choose to be upset. And, you know, it's my fault. I mean, we've heard this before, right? "It's your fault. I've had a bad day. Don't nag me. Don't bother me." You know, that kind of stuff. But eventually I simply couldn't take it anymore, and the final straw was, strangely enough, after I passed my flight test and I passed, we started training in one airport, and then we moved to another. So I was keen to tell the instructors at the first airport. So the day that I plan to tell them, tell the instructors, my husband got there first, and he told them. And I thought, "That's it." And it maybe seemed like a very trivial thing. It was like, you know, you're done talking for me. I'm tired of you. You can be proud for me. You can support me. That's great, and I really appreciate it. But this is my news--and it was pretty monumental. It's like, "Finally! Yay!"
Eddie Rester 11:47
Right. Yeah, one of the things as a pastor who's met with folks through the years, going through the controlling, the stealing joy, the undermining of confidence, is extremely common. I mean, that's kind of the basis of the domestic violence. But there also this cycle that often abusers, where they're the best husband in the world. Things begin to turn, there's an event or an incident. The one who's being abused says, "I'm leaving," or "I'm out," and then suddenly there's this kind of back up to the top of the cycle, which is acting like the best husband. And often victims of domestic violence, I'm hesitant to say women, because men can also be victims.
Lola Reid Allin 13:48 Absolutely.
Eddie Rester 13:49
How did you break out of the cycle? I know there was this moment, but this was the 1970s?
And so...
Lola Reid Allin 13:56
1979. I just summoned all the courage I possibly had, and I said, "That's it. I'm..." On the way home, I sort of rehearsed what I was going to say. I got home, we, you know, had supper, put our son to bed, you know, read to him, blah, blah, and then and the living room, I just said, "I'm leaving. After I talked to the flight school today, and I planned to tell them my news, I learned you had already told them, and that's the last time that's ever going to happen. I'm leaving, but not in two weeks, not until two weeks." I made arrangements with a girlfriend in the event that I had to leave earlier than that. And you're right. He was wonderful for those two weeks. He was great. He didn't bring me roses and stuff like that. But he was a great guy. He came home, he drank less. He was, he always was a wonderful father. That was one of the things that kept me from not leaving, because he was a wonderful father, always. But I think he knew it was over, and in fact, when I did leave, and then I came back one time, and he was very violent. He did beat me up. And I left in the middle of the night, and I'd already had an apartment by that time. And this is typical 1979 I guess, I realized when I got to my car that he had stolen my car keys. So I thought, "oh my gosh, what am I going to do?" So I ran. Thankfully, I encountered some police officers, so I'm thinking, great, this is perfect. They'll be able to come in the house with me. I'll get my keys wherever Paul has hidden them. But they couldn't. I said, "Wait a minute. What do you mean you can't come in?" He said, they said, "The house belongs to your husband." I said, "No, no, we have joint custody or joint ownership." He said, "Yes, but the if the man, their husband, is at home, the home is the domain of the the man, and the man of the house must be the one to invite me in." So I did some pretty quick, creative thinking. And I said, because we had an old house with big double doors, and I said, 'So can you stand on the veranda?" And they said, "Yes." I said, "Perfect. I'll leave the doors open. You stand on the veranda. And I know that if he wakes up and try something, if I say 'Officer...'" and that's exactly what happened. And he, after that, we had a really honest conversation when he realized nothing was going to keep me at home with him, ever. And at that point, he said, You know, I think I've known a long time that you weren't happy and I wasn't the right person, or we weren't the right person for each other. So, he had to come to a certain understanding, too. I think for a while, we were both in denial. I'm sure we knew it wasn't working very well.
Chris McAlilly 16:48
That makes me think that just you're referencing of kind of the space and the legal parameters around it, and the police officers kind of acknowledging that the domain of the home is the man to his home. I've recently been going back and looking at some of the dimensions of the Bible, the patriarchal nature of the way in which the relationships between men and women are talked about in the book of Genesis, specifically. And it really is, you know, the man, men dominate in the Bible. You know, kind of especially in the Old Testament, and women and children are considered property. And so there's a sense in which, I mean, there are all kinds of ways in which you can follow and track this through Levitical law and in the life of Israel, in an ancient tribal, patriarchal society. It is kind of, you know, it's kind of a bit... It's abrupt when you encounter some of those residual realities in very basic things that we think of as normal today and that are kind of inscribed or written into our culture. I think of you know, there, we're in the American south and in the south, at times, in a wedding ceremony, the question will be asked, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" And every time I, you know, come across that moment in the service, I think, huh. That's kind of a weird...
Eddie Rester 18:26 That's a weird thing, yeah.
Lola Reid Allin 18:27
Well, not just the men with whom I work, but the clients or the passengers were often surprised. Now, sometimes there was this genuine surprise, like "You're the pilot!" But at other times, from people who should know, who, one man in particular just finished telling me he traveled all over the world, and he said, "So what are you serving for lunch today?" And I said, "Well, actually, these stripes here and here, they indicate that I'm..." And he said, "I know what that means. I know what those stripes mean. But didn't you just borrow the jacket?"
Chris McAlilly 18:27
It's a weird thing. And it's kind of this residual understanding that women in a patriarchal culture would be considered, you know, the domain, literally, like kind of property, which I think clearly that's something that what I hear in your story is you were kind of removing yourself from an abusive situation, but also as you move forward, you're challenging norms, particularly in your professional life, not just in the domestic world, but as you kind of moved into aviation. And you've already referenced this, but I wonder if you might could speak a little bit more to kind of the ways, your challenges as a professional, in the world of aviation, just some of the things that you encountered,
Lola Reid Allin 19:53
So that kind of stuff was really shocking. And it's still happening today. And I think it's partly the way we are still raising our children, boys and girls, to have certain expectations, whether we're intentionally doing it or not. That's a different story. You know, little frilly, frilly print dresses and dolls, and you go to the boys' section, or what's clearly the boys' section, and there's trucks and all kinds of neat stuff like that. And maybe we should have some pink trucks, I don't know. But people have these expectations about how little girls should behave and how little boys should behave, and what careers they should aspire to.
Eddie Rester 19:53 Oh my.
Lola Reid Allin 20:37
It's changed a lot. In my mother's time, in 1947 when she got married, she had to quit her job, not when she got pregnant, but when she got married. So married women couldn't work. So things have changed a lot. Now we have like human rights commissions in most countries in the world in which you can, you know, take your concerns and discuss them and have them adjudicated. But I think mostly the guys I worked with, with a couple exceptions, were basically wonderful human beings. They just didn't have the scope to deal with, here's this woman, and yeah, she's doing an okay job. But you know, my wife, my mother, my girlfriend--I mean, not my wife and girlfriend at the same time, but whatever--my wife, my girlfriend, my mom, my grandma, they're all stay-at-homes, or if they have a job, it's maybe part time to earn a little bit of extra money for holidays or whatever. But they're basically in a subsidiary role. And so here's this woman who's flying the same plane I am. And how do I feel about that as a man?
Eddie Rester 21:47
Right.
Lola Reid Allin 21:48
There were all kinds of feelings going through there that, well, we could write books about that one for sure. And one example that I give in the book there's this guy, one of the guys I worked with is, you know, I kind of had a crush on him. Just a soft crush. And so we're walking, we're going flying, and we walk across the hangar, we walk toward the passenger exit door, and he stops, and he puts his hand on the doorknob, but he doesn't open the door. And he looks at me and he said, "We don't know how to deal with you." He said, "Should we open this door like I would for my mom or my girlfriend or a woman or a man carrying packages? Or should I just open this door and walk through?" And I said, "I think you can open the door. If I'm carrying a ton of stuff, and yeah, then please open the door for me." But it was that kind of stuff, because they're raised to open doors for women, and so it was difficult for everybody.
Eddie Rester 21:48
It's a resetting of norms, and so, and I'm thankful that you're acknowledging that, because you understand that these men that you worked with hadn't been in this situation before, so it took a minute for them to reset the norms.
Chris McAlilly 23:01
I think about the some of the women that I've encountered that maybe were breaking a barrier.
Lola Reid Allin 23:10 Wow. That's awesome.
Eddie Rester 23:10 Pioneers.
Chris McAlilly 23:10
Yeah, pioneers in particular professions or sectors or whatever. There's a woman in our community who's one of the first and best attorneys in this part of the world. Her name is Mary Ann Connell, and she ended up being the lead counsel for for the university in our town. She basically walked across the street from having raised her children, without her husband's knowing and enrolled herself in law school. and then she ended up, you know, being an incredible lawyer, but she was practicing in town. I heard her tell the story recently. This is in her memoir where she talks about, there was a man that came looking, seeking legal counsel. And she was a partner with two other men, and she arrived early. The men, the attorneys that were men, arrived later, and this man came to the office, and he looked around, and he said, "I'm looking for an attorney. I have some legal work that I need to get done." And and she said, "Well, I'm an attorney." And he was surprised. He said, "Well, I can't do legal work with a woman. I just can't have a woman doing this work for me." So she said that's fine. She was very gracious with him. She said "you can go see if there's another man around." And she knew that none of the men were in the office, yeah. So he walked all around the Square, and he walked back in, you know, sheepishly, and said, "Well, you're the only attorney at work right now, so I'm going to get you to do my legal work." It was. But the thing in her story, that I found, that I see as a kind of a bit of a parallel, is there is a kind of a bravery and a courage, but there's also... There's grace, you know, that you're offering to people that are encountering something that perhaps they're encountering for the first time or in a new way. But that takes restraint, you know, so that you're not offering to them what you might want to offer in any given moment, you know. And that's a difficult thing. How did you maintain your poise, I guess, in your professional career, when you encountered things like that?
Lola Reid Allin 25:24
I would just try and explain, you know, like the fellow on the ramp. I said, "Well, you know, I'm sorry, but I am one of the pilots, and I would like to continue this conversation with you," because I wanted to enlighten him further that I hadn't just borrowed the jacket. I said, "But unfortunately, I can't continue the conversation, because I have to go fly the plane, the one that you're going to be getting on."
Eddie Rester 25:46
That's right, "that will take off and land with me as your pilot." Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin 25:49
But you know, it's still happening. I went flying one day last week, and I was talking with, there are two female instructors, and I was talking with one of them, and said, you know, "Cindy, does this stuff that I endured happen these days?" And she said, "You know, a funny thing happened to me just last week." It was a new student, a man in his 40s or 50s, she wasn't sure quite exactly, and she's, I don't know, a petite, 26-year-old. And they went out to the airplane. She did the walk around--that is to check, you know, make sure the controls are moving in the correct direction, check the fuel and oil levels, tires, etc. And at the end, and he was sort of looking kind of expectantly. And she said, "Did you forget something?" You know, do you have to go back to the hangar? And he said, "Well, aren't we waiting for the pilot?" So even in front of him was a woman checking out the plane. She'd signed out the plane. She had the documents that you need to fly legally. And he still couldn't believe it. Anyway, I guess the flight went all right. He didn't refuse to fly or anything. But he was still very, very shocked. And think we need more role models, which is why I like coming in programs like this, on podcasts, presentations. I'll speak to schools, to service clubs, to libraries, churches, whatever, anyone who'll listen. Because we need role models. So my husband, my current and wonderful husband, 26 years, he knew at age six he wanted to be a doctor. His dad was a gynecologist, his uncle was an ophthalmologist. Their grandfather was a general physician, and he could see that he could do that, and he knew early on that that's what he wanted to be. So he had the role model, and he had an encouraging family life, which is very important. But not everybody has role models. Not everybody has encouragement at home. My mother also wasn't terribly encouraging. She kind of felt defeated having to quit the jobs that she wanted, and felt a lot of prejudice, and she, I remember her saying to me once when I was about 16, she said, "Lola, your life will be so much easier if you stop bucking the system." And she was absolutely right, but it wouldn't have been as much fun or as rewarding.
Eddie Rester 28:16
Yeah, as you have that conversation, I'm thinking about my two daughters. I've got a 23-year- old and a 21-year-old. Both of them are biomedical engineering majors. So they're engineers, which, but that's a typically...
Chris McAlilly 28:30
This is in spite of having Eddie as their father.
Eddie Rester 28:32
In spite of me. You talk about people with tough homes that aren't, you know... Yeah, thanks, Chris. But you know, they're in a field in engineering and STEM that is not as much, but is still fairly male dominated. And the thing that made a difference for them, for both of them, one was a female teacher that they both had in high school, taught chemistry that really... They saw, they could see with their eyes someone in the field. My oldest daughter went and worked, not worked, but toured a biomedical... where they make things with women, and met with their women engineering group there at the company. And so she could see. But then both of them also had a calculus teacher who was a male calculus teacher who did an incredible job of making sure they knew they could do the work just as well as anyone else. And so it's this, I think you're exactly right. You've got to be able to see it. So who were some of those? When you think, and in the book you talk, I think about a couple. You sought out some models, some folks who could be that for you,
Lola Reid Allin 29:54
Kind of. The only female pilot that was really, so, so common was Amelia Earhart. So I'd read lots of books about her. Beryl Markham had had written "West With the Night," which my grandfather had a copy of that. There was a TV show called "Sky King," and this was somewhat instrumental. This TV show was "Sky King." It was named after the protagonist, Schuyler King, and he flew around the American Southwest saving people. So he was sort of an airborne savior coming, you know, to rescue people who were trapped from a flood or something when they were hiking, that kind of stuff. And his niece, Penny was a pilot. But this is where it gets interesting, because it was, I watched it in the reruns, but it was created in the decade following the end of World War Two in 1945 when there were female pilots who flew in the war as ferry pilots, taking planes from the manufacturers or from repair depots to places where the men, who were flying the planes in combat, could then fly them across the Atlantic and go to combat. So the creators of "Sky King" wrote Penny in as sort of an auxiliary character, but in my memory, she only was allowed to fly if her uncle sort of gave her permission, or if he was incapacitated in some way. And so it was a bit of a role model, obviously, since I did grow up and become a pilot. But it's also, as I look back on it, for her to fly, for her to have a license, she was tested. She studied the same course, and she was tested, written tests and a practical test with the same testing that he went through, and yet she still had a subsidiary position. Although TV is quite a medium, my other favorite show was 'Sea Hunt," and I grew up and became a scuba diver. So there must have been something inspirational about Penny, despite her subsidiary role.
Chris McAlilly 31:59
I do think that that is one of the things that I observe about this particular cultural moment, and I guess I mean the last 75 years, you know, in American history and North American history, I do think the advent of television is an incredibly powerful tool for young people to see more possibilities than perhaps they would have seen in their, you know, either family of origin or their...
Eddie Rester 32:31
Where they grew up, their setting.
Chris McAlilly 32:32
Their immediate cultural environment. I think that that probably plays a much greater role. I've heard, you know, for people that don't see models in their kind of local circles. I have, you know, examples that come to mind. But I wonder, you know... I think the thread from this conversation to just the television, visual medium, is just storytelling. It's just the importance of people telling their stories and, you know, kind of articulating them. One of the dimensions of your story that I find fascinating is that you go on not just to fly and scuba dive, but just have this whole life of adventure. And I wonder, was that always, was that something that emerged on the other side of your separation and ultimately your divorce from your first husband, or is that just always a part of who you were?
Lola Reid Allin 33:33
I think it was. My, I was, first of all seven years old when I had a first flight, which may not seem like much now, but in 1962 that was epic. People just did not hop on airplanes and go flying. It was, you know, the airplanes were the New Kids on the Block. We were just not even two decades past World War Two. So it was very different in itself. But my parents loved to travel. My grandparents, my mother's parents, loved to travel, and I would spend summers just traveling North America with either my parents or my grandparents. So I loved it, and I loved looking at maps and stamps from different countries, and wanted to go to those countries as well. And my parents subscribed to Life magazine and National Geographic and so both of those, you know, I love coming home, you know, in grade, you know, two, four, whatever, as a public school, and seeing those magazines. And I would drop everything else and just watch, read those magazines before I did anything else. I just always wanted to travel.
Eddie Rester 34:41
I just think that, what your life, the story that your life tells is of you've been able to see and then you've been able to do, whether it was Life Magazine or your grandparents or your parents taking you on trips or "Sky King." I vaguely remember. I don't know if I've ever seen that show, but I vaguely remember that show. And so over and over, and you're telling your story, and your book is a part of that as well. What would you say to maybe women who are business owners or other female pilots, or people who've, you know, had these great whether it's legal career, like Mary Ann Connell or others, what would you tell them about their responsibility to the next generation? I feel, I sense that you feel that.
Lola Reid Allin 35:35
I do. I didn't always, in the sense of, at one point, I just felt I was doing my job. I wanted to fly. I had a commercial license. I applied to places, and they hired me. And I didn't think that much about it. But I certainly do now, because I really felt that others I assumed, incorrectly, that others felt like I did. If you want to go flying, you want to go scuba diving, you want to travel, you should just do it to the best of your ability. You know, get an education, get a job. That was instrumental, obviously, in my being able to leave my husband. If I didn't have a job, I would have had to go home to my parents, which wasn't a horrible thing, but it's not what I wanted to do. So, you know, getting an education. And I'm in awe of your daughters, by the way. Wow. Biomedical Engineering, I'm so impressed.
Eddie Rester 36:24 Their mama is brilliant.
Lola Reid Allin 36:25
No matter what it is. If you see women doing it, and there are more and more women talking about their jobs or writing books about their jobs, whether it's aviation, whatever. There are more and more female characters or female role models. And, yeah, we need to. That's one reason I wrote the book, is to get people talking, to start a conversation with anyone who will listen about how important it is for women to be able to see that career is viable for them. And today, one thing that's also very helpful, as I mentioned, that there are two women who are instructors at Oshawa. For my entire career, except the last month, I was the only female. So that, in itself, is a bit daunting, and it was lonely, for sure, it was. There were some guys I could talk to. Obviously I wasn't ostracized. But it is different. It would have been nice to have another woman to speak with. And at the time that I was flying, in America, there were 480 female commercial pilots, or females who had a commercial pilot license but weren't necessarily flying commercially. So we, in Canada have about 10th of that population. So across Canada, let's just say there were maybe 48 women who had a commercial license, and not all of them flew. So I rarely, rarely heard another female on the radio. In fact, I heard three during my entire career. So it makes a difference to have friends or acquaintances, to have allies, male or female, to go out and speak to people and just tell your story.
Eddie Rester 38:09
I just realized that my cousin's daughter is a commercial pilot. She, I've just, like, I'd forgotten about that, but she, yeah, it took her a long time to get through the process. And I know that her grandmother, my aunt, at first, was like, "Why is she doing that? Why is she doing that?" But she persevered and absolutely loves it. But she had a lot of her friends cheering her on along the way. She had a community really cheering her on. So it sounds like you had that kind of community of friends and folks along the way who just really, even in the face of adversity, cheered you on. And I think that's one of the things when you see someone trying to blaze a path that's so critical that you cheer them on along the way.
Lola Reid Allin 39:04
You have to have at least one supporter, that's for sure.
Eddie Rester 39:06
Yeah, if there's someone listening to podcast today, female, or maybe even a male who is kind of on the brink of a dream of, "I should do, I feel like that's my path," but they're caught up in that fear or that maybe the voices to them are "You can't do that. You can't leave that. You have to stay here." What would you say to them?
Lola Reid Allin 39:32
Believe in yourself. Be confident. Believe in yourself, and if you don't try--I don't know if you guys follow hockey, but Wayne Gretzky is one of our big hockey superstars.
Eddie Rester 39:42
I've heard that name, yeah.
Lola Reid Allin 39:43
Yeah. You've heard of him right. Yes. His motto is, "I miss 100% of the goals I don't take." And I love that. If you don't try, you've already failed. I mean, maybe. And some people, what I forget who says, there's a famous author who said, "Fail, get up, fail, try again. Fail, try again." Keep on going, because you may just not be ready for that particular career or that particular move or jump in your life at that time, but if you keep striving for that goal and believe in yourself, be confident. Be courageous. You do have to be courageous. But fear is a big problem, for sure. And I know that in one of my lessons, they wanted to send me solo, and I didn't think I was ready. I mean, they thought, they had the confidence in me, but I didn't, because I needed to do a full spin, not just a little incipient wing drop, but I wanted to do a full spin. And they said, "Well, you don't need to do that." And I went, "Yeah, for me, I really need to do that." That gave me the confidence that I knew how to recover, how to recognize it, how to recover, and so that I was confident that when you send me solo, I won't mess up. And I called it stall, spin, crash, burn, die. I would be able to take off and land properly. So, but it takes a while to get that courage right, and you just step by step. It's sort of like, I think if I, let's say I start university, and in the first year I'm worried about passing my fourth year finals. Don't do that, because you're going to fail. There's no way that a person taking first year courses would pass fourth year finals, but you'll get there just step by step by step, and it gets easier. The commercial license flight test was much easier than the private. You just had to do it to higher standards. But again, if I tried to do a commercial flight test instead of, you know, when I only had 40 hours, I would have failed, because I wasn't ready for that particular test.
Chris McAlilly 41:55
Step by step. I like that. That's super helpful. And, you know, I've taken a bunch of notes. I have a 13-year-old son, and I have a 10-year-old son. I've got a 7-year-old daughter, and so I've got some things to take from this conversation for future conversations with them. So grateful for your story, for your willingness to share it with us and just your presence with us. Eddie's got your book information right here. I think he was pointing at it.
Eddie Rester 42:29
Yeah, I was pointing at it, but it's upside down, so Chris can't read upside down, but the book is "Highway to the Sky" by Lola Reid Allin. And Lola again, thank you for sharing your story and inspiring others. I think for me, that's what I'm taking from the conversation is our role to continue to call out the best in others and to encourage them along the way. So thank you for doing that.
Lola Reid Allin 42:52
Well. Thank you. You guys have been awesome. I really enjoy it.
Eddie Rester 42:55
Yeah, thank you for your time.
Chris McAlilly 42:57 Thanks so much.
Lola Reid Allin 42:58 Thank you.
Eddie Rester 42:59
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly 43:08
If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]