It’s important, I think, for us mortals to share our most memorable experiences with one another. When others tell of things they’ve done, places they’ve gone and people they’ve met, it enriches us. As only a rarified few among us have the time and unlimited means to experience everything life offers, tales of disparate adventures allow us to live vicariously, broaden our horizons, enrich our intellectual experience, and keep alive the hope that one day we too will actualize whatever dream keeps us wishing upon our proverbial star.

Ever the old social studies guy, I always dreamed of visiting every continent before taking the dirt nap, but so far haven’t crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere. I’m eight short of visiting all 50 of the United States of America, and I’ve yet to cruise the inside passage to Alaska, or to see glaciers calving.

The things that intrigue me may not float your boat, but sharing experiences with folks who have "been there, done that" brings blessings of ineffable joy.

Ineffable, or perhaps "indescribably delicious," epitomizes my affection for airplanes and flying, and I’d like to share some "flights of fancy" experienced o’er the last 30 years.

Back when I was almost somebody with a major airline, I was privileged to take delivery of a new 737 in Seattle. We climbed out of Boeing Field, headed for Mount Rainier, and emerged from the clouds at 12,000 feet. Level with the summit at 14,400 feet, so close I could almost touch it, I watched as winds aloft whipped snow flurries off those distinctive twin peaks.

In 1984, a friend piloting a Lockheed L-1011 invited my wife and me into the cockpit as we skirted the southern coast of Greenland. All around the island, as far as we could see, icebergs sparkled like brilliant white diamonds sprinkled across a dark blue carpet of ocean.

It was in 1991 that I rode a redeye from Portland, Oregon, to Atlanta through Seattle. A full moon shone down on an unbroken layer of cottony clouds. As I watched, spellbound, the majestic cone of Mount Hood appeared above the clouds, its shadow pointing across level cloud cover toward the gaping, shattered cone of Mount St. Helens, seemingly screaming in ruined agony.

I scanned the aircraft cabin, desperate to share the spectacle, but everyone was sleeping. A black-and-white scene created for Ansel Adams’ camera beckoned from beneath their windows, but they slept.

There was a cockpit jump seat ride to Charleston, W.Va., on a perfect winter day with my Cherokee County pilot friend when visibility was "clear and a million," and a spectacular day when another friend handed me the controls of his Beech 18 over Lake Oconee.

But let me tell you about last Saturday at Jackson Lake. It was a wet, chilly day, and the ceiling was so low the clouds seemed to touch the pine trees.

I took a break from mowing grass and, as the lawn mower died, heard the unmistakable thrumming of a big radial twin really close, and really low.

I ran out on a dock for a clear view just as a World War II B-25 Mitchell bomber broke through the cloud cover.

She was right there at me, right down on the deck. If I hadn’t taken a break, I’d have missed the Mitchell’s approach over the lawn mower’s engine noise. And if I didn’t know the sound of twin radial engines, I would never have run to try and find her.

There’s a line in John Denver’s "Rocky Mountain High" that says, "I know he’d be a poor man if he’d never seen an eagle fly."

Tell me about it. I never rose to fame, fortune, power or prestige. But for seven seconds last Saturday I was the richest man in the world, seeing that B-25 down on the deck, and hearing the sweet, sweet song of those twin radials.

Nat Harwell is a long-time resident of Newton County. His columns appear regularly on Sundays.