Decades ago at Reagan National Airport, the finance minister of a Central African country had a problem: His limo never showed up.
He went to an information desk, where he met Antoinette Jeffries. The country’s embassy didn’t answer when she called, she says, so she coordinated a limo for him. The minister was so grateful that he proposed to her, Jeffries says.
“Would you please marry me?” Jeffries recalls him asking. “I need somebody like you to take care of me.”
He was handsome, Jeffries says, but she was already married and declined his offer. He kissed her hand and left.
Jeffries never intended to be an airport information desk volunteer, which is an unpaid position, but she says experiences such as the surprise proposal are why she has remained behind the desk since she started volunteering in 1987. An airport information desk may not seem like a site of adventure, but Jeffries maintains that it is.
“It’s just the excitement of it, and meeting new people all the time,” she says. With a laugh, the 79-year-old jokes, “Maybe I’ll get another proposal.”
During a recent four-hour Saturday shift, Jeffries stands behind the information desk in National’s Terminal 2, not far from the B gates and Dunkin’. With black hair punctuated by a streak of gray, she surveys the ebb and flow of the crowds moving through the terminal. Her lanyard features several pins, including a panda and one commemorating her 30-year anniversary as a volunteer.
Toting carry-ons, coffees and small children, passengers hurry by to catch flights to Boston, Buffalo and Bangor, Maine. Every few minutes, boarding announcements play on the loudspeaker.
“Where’s the Lego Store?” one woman asks Jeffries. Several ask for the locations of the Delta and American lounges. One wonders why her trip to Cleveland isn’t on the flight information display system; Jeffries says it’s because her flight isn’t for a few hours.
One woman asks where the American Express Centurion Lounge is. “Are you ready for a long walk?” Jeffries replies. The woman’s eyes widen.
Then comes the punch line. “Turn around. It’s right there,” Jeffries says with a chuckle, gesturing across the hall to the nearby lounge. The woman laughs.
“Tell them they really need to put up a larger sign,” Jeffries instructs the woman. The lounge’s sign is, indeed, about the size of a piece of printer paper.
For every person Jeffries helps, she counts them with her manual clicker. Her record is over 100 people during one shift, she says.
Jeffries has lived in the D.C. region her entire life. Originally from Portsmouth, Virginia, she studied math at Howard University.
Decades ago, Jeffries’s sister-in-law asked Jeffries to go with her to an information session about becoming an airport volunteer. Her sister-in-law canceled at the last minute, but Jeffries still went.
At the time, Jeffries had a demanding job at the Agriculture Department, so she didn’t think she could fit volunteering into her schedule. But after sitting through the information session, she thought the gig sounded interesting, and the nonprofit Travelers Aid International was happy to accommodate her schedule.
Now retired, Jeffries volunteers most Saturdays, unless she’s traveling. She lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, about a 45-minute drive from the airport. She says she plans to continue volunteering until she can’t drive anymore. But she’s having too much fun at the airport to stop now.
Last year, a man from Dubai offered her a wad of hundred-dollar bills and promised to pay for her travel to the Middle East, she says. All because Jeffries helped return his rental car key, which he had forgotten to do when he dropped the car off. (Jeffries says she declined the money, and she still hasn’t made it to Dubai.)
Not everyone is as friendly.
Years ago, a woman asked Jeffries and her colleague for help retrieving her mink coat, which she said she had forgotten at a White House reception the night before. The woman was frustrated and called Jeffries’s colleague an idiot when he said he couldn’t help, Jeffries says.
Most questions are about the airport, Jeffries says, but sometimes travelers open up about their personal lives, such as troubles with spouses and children.
“They pour out their heart. They pour out their soul,” she says. “I think it’s because they figure they won’t see me again.”
From behind the desk, Jeffries says she had learned that people all have the same kinds of problems.
“They want to get from point A to point B with the least amount of resistance,” she says. “Everybody wants to be treated with respect, and I try to do that. Some people just need a hug. I’ve done that. People are people.”
Even though Jeffries spends most of her time at the airport watching other peoples’ lives, sometimes her life comes into play in that space, too. About halfway through her shift, a man approaches the desk.
“You won’t believe who I am,” Darryl Dennis says. He dated Jeffries’s niece decades ago. Dennis and Jeffries hadn’t seen each other since the 1980s.
“I just can’t believe this,” she says.
“It’s divine intervention,” he replies.
They hug, exchange contact information and promise to stay in touch. As Dennis walks away, Jeffries counts him with her clicker.
The post For four decades, she’s seen it all from behind an airport help desk appeared first on Washington Post.
