You've booked your flight and arrived at the airport, ready for your trip. Just imagine arriving minutes before your flight and being able to board the plane, walking to your gate without going through TSA, lighting up a cigarette on board, and eating a free meal-in coach.

Sound crazy? Not if you traveled during the 1960s and early 1970s, when Janet Angell was a flight attendant.

Jump Seat is Angell's candid memoir about a time when plane travel was still a luxury for most and flight attendants were called stewardesses. Angell grew up on a farm in Minnesota and always...