For a fleeting moment I thought I was in paradise. I was sitting in the seat with my arms folded against my chest, bathed by the dim glow from the instrument panel. I fancied that the orange and dull yellow lights were the glow of embers in the fireplace at evening's end. I was warm and dry, and the plane rocked gently as it passed through the lumpy air near last Friday's cold front.

I could clearly hear the sound of rain splattering on the windshield and the wingtip lights cast shades of green and red into the surrounding cloud, but the back- and- forth sweep on the radar screen quietly assured that there were no surprises ahead. A scan across the instruments showed that it was a very routine night, with everything working properly, and that the plane was headed for an intersection above the Pocono Speedway at 180 MPH. I would be there in 15 minutes and then turn 30 degrees left and follow another airway almost directly towards Newark NJ.

What am I doing here? I wondered. Most of the kids I grew up with have top- of- the- ladder jobs and have started using the "R" word ...retirement... without feeling presumptuous. Most people my age are cozy at home as I fly overhead. At the zenith of my working years, I find myself working for wages in a "coloring- book" job; little boys are excited by action jobs, fireman, policeman, airplane pilot, bulldozer driver, among others. Have you ever seen a picture of a CEO in a coloring book?

I suppose though, that it doesn't matter. The bundle of skills and knowledge that make up the pilot's craft seem to be the best commodity that I can bring to the job market. It is a unique combination where man rides a machine that is not completely trustworthy into the unpredictable realm of nature. A range of physical skills must be backed up by the cerebral elements of planning, analysis, and risk management. There are times to be patient and other times to be assertive.

It is hard to think of it as work though. Through the course of the year, the weather is good much more frequently than it is bad, and even when it is bad, it is seldom terrible. When it is terrible, it most always improves within a few hours. Just after crossing Friday's cold front I flew in a clear sky just above a broad plain of pearlescent clouds. The single layer of clouds was thin enough to be illuminated by city lights below, but thick enough mask all details

Two months ago I picked my way through a line of thunderstorms that everybody else, including enroute airliners were avoiding. Before departing, I saw on the radar an area where the line seemed to be diffusing, and that the storms in general were developing less vigorously. As I approached the line, it looked like my guess was right, so I continued. I spent fifteen minutes on the edge of my seat, listening to bursts of rain and watching the sky around me light up. I waited to be tossed around like some insolent piece of tin foil, but the passage turned out to be uneventful.

The night's most vivid memory was on the return trip in the first light of the next morning. The storms were just passing Newark and moving into the Atlantic as we loaded the plane, and I departed into the low clouds and drizzle that lingered. Quickly though, I was above the rain clouds but under a broad cover of higher clouds. As I turned west, I could see the light of a clear sky above the lower clouds.

Soon I was skimming across a great expanse of clouds that shown pink with the light of dawn as Bobby Darrin's song "sailing" was playing on the nearby oldies station. It did indeed seem that I was sailing "some-where... beyond the sea", someplace incredibly serene and romantic. I was glad too, to be sailing home.