Karen the editor's page.

Growing up, I was psyched to have any excuse to spend time with my dad. I didn't get to see him often (my parents are divorced), so Dullsville errands like picking up his dry-cleaning became precious chances to hang out. While I'd have been happy watching paint dry with my dad, there was one invitation I loved to get: "Want to go to Owosso for breakfast?" Owosso is a small town about 100 miles from Detroit, where we lived. While I could tell you the blueberry pancakes were worth a two-hour drive, the truth is my dad wanted an excuse to fly his Cessna.

I'm sure my love for that plane had a lot to do with the fact that Saturday mornings were just me, Dad and the wild blue yonder. My stepmother hated flying, so I had Dad to myself. And I loved flying--far above the world, all the troubles of Earthbound life seeming to slip away under our wings. While my dad always knew how much I loved the experience, I doubt he ever imagined I'd one day fly the plane. But this past summer, that's exactly what I set out to do. My first day in flight training with Dale went something like this: "Hi, I'm Dale. My job is to keep you from killing yourself in an airplane. OK, hop in and let's go flying!" And by that, Dale meant me. At the controls. After 30 years in the passenger seat, I'd been upgraded--just like that. Even though I had taken off with my dad hundreds of times, the prospect of getting us airborne was totally confounding. As I did the pro-flight check, I could barely remember stuff I'd known my whole life turn, that's a door and, ah, it should be latched, right?). Dale patiently corrected my confusion over the prop and the throttle (opposite from my dad's plane and two things you do not want to mix up). After we wobbled out to the runway (steering with your feet is no easy task), I threw in the throttle on a three-count. I'd like to say my takeoff was smooth, but sweat came through my T-shirt by the time I reached 1,200 feet and leveled out enough to see the horizon. Dale almost managed to look like he wasn't terrified. Almost. Despite the shaky start, for the next week, Dale cheered me on as I got his Cessna Cardinal off the ground, did 30-degree turns and cruised the sky without sending us into a death spiral. But best of all, Dale believed I could do it even when, at times, I wasn't so sure. ("Dale, that wasn't a good landing!" "Karen, are we on the runway? Are we alive? Well, then, that was a good landing!")

Then, the last day of my lessons, something amazing happened. I managed to take off without terror, get the plane easily into cruising mode and bring us in for a (fairly) cushy landing. I can't tell you how unreal it feels to finally be doing something you've dreamed about your whole life. Or, as Dale put it, "Oh, my God, she can be taught!"

After every lesson, Dale dutifully recorded my hours and progress in my pilot's log book, a possession I now treasure as much as those hours spent with my dad in his Cessna. it's taken me 30 years but, yes, now I believe I can fly.