Wow, thanks!
I never was able to watch MASH, with the execrable Alan Alda.
I'm wondering if that quote --"'Ladies and Gentleman take my advice. Sometimes you have to just pull down your pants and slide on the ice'---Dr. Sydney Freedman" -- was appended by Ms. Mayo herself?
On the one hand, it doesn't seem to part of the body of her letter. OTOH, I don't see it used elsewhere on "Smirking Chimp's" site.
Am going to try to find and link the article that states Ms. Mayo threatened to pull down her sweatpants and "do it in the aisle."
Acid flashback - I bet she hadn't bathed in days....
Here's one article that mentions it:
Passengers said the woman appeared to have emotional problems.
Several passengers said Mayo made repeated trips to the bathroom.
"She was in a frenzy," passenger Martin Drinkwater of London told The Boston Globe. "She then pulled her trousers and knickers down and squatted on the floor."
Antony Nash, 31, of San Diego, said he grew nervous watching the petite woman in a jogging suit seated near him in the back of the plane. She was muttering, pacing, and making too many trips to the bathroom, he said. The pilot did not make a general announcement to passengers of what was happening.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060817/ap_on_re_us/flight_diverted_33
"'All of a sudden, she started mouthing obscenities and pulled down her trousers,' Mr. Drinkwater [!] [a fellow passenger] said, saying the woman threatened to relieve herself on the floor. At that point, he said, two male passengers subdued her, and a flight attendant handcuffed her and placed her in the last row of the aircraft." [source: New York Times: Unruly Passenger Causes Diversion of a Flight From London ... all emphasis mine, shrub]
Now check the quote appended to Ms. Mayo's letter to Senator Byrd:
"'Ladies and Gentleman take my advice. Sometimes you have to just pull down your pants and slide on the ice'---Dr. Sydney Freedman"