come fly with me, let's fly away

I almost got my pilot's license

     Yes, you read that right.  Me, the guy afraid of heights and flying, once took flying lessons.
     I had just started at the Rochelle News Leader and Milli Stansbury was the editor.  She came up with the idea of me taking flying lessons at Rochelle airport.  The paper would work out a deal....I got the lessons, did a story, the instructor got all the publicity and hopefully more students.
     I admit, it was kind of fun.
    The first time I took off and landed the plane was  a thrill.  Of course, there was an instructor sitting next to me.  I don't remember his name, but it could have been Red.  Or Wiley.  I think Wiley. Or Red.
     I once took off and as we zoomed over Ill. 251 my door opened.  I looked out at the ground below with the damn door not where it should be.  The instructor laughed and said not to pay any attention to that because I had bigger issues to deal with.
     I pictured myself as a pilot.  I thought it would be a piece of cake to fly my family to a vacation spot, maybe an island in one of the big lakes, or to a Cub game, or Florida.
     The only problem I had was....I couldn't handle the thought of going solo.  I was ready.  The instructor said I was ready.  Three times I said I needed to work on take offs, or landings, or navigation, or, you get the picture.
     We would get in the plane and I would do everything while he watched.  Take off.  Land. Take off. Land.  Easy as pie.
     I tend to panic under pressure.
     We had practiced going into a stall and coming out of it.  I will never forget the sound of the stall alarm going off, and the plane beginning to spiral downward.
     I thought I was gonna loose my lunch, the instructor just laughed like crazy.  After what seemed an hour of watching the ground do a 360 in front of me, he told me how to correct it.  I never could.
     He would intentionally put me in a stall, and I would always start screaming.  After hours of that, he would pull us out and tell me how easy that was to fix.
     Meanwhile, I sat there in a puddle, sweat pouring out of every pore in my body.
     But when we were up in the air, just cruising around the area, it was beautiful.  The farms, the houses, the fields.....all look quite different from 2,000 feet.
     I think I had almost 20 lessons.....the last three were supposed to be solos.
     I didn't feel confident enough to do it.  I knew a stall would kill me.
     I often wonder how my life would have changed once I got a pilot's license.
     Providing I survived the solo, that is.