James Powell's earliest memories are of airplanes. His imagination was fueled by gasoline-powered models; balsa-wood gliders; and stories of military aircraft. Amazing, though, James never believed he would have the opportunity to fly in an airplane.

While stumbling through school unsure of a career, James took a "dollar ride" in a Cessna 150. After a thirty-minute flight, he had an epiphany. As they taxied in, James's heart and mind were still in the air. "Eureka! I've found it," he said to himself. "This is what I want to do. I am going to fly airplanes."

Powell's path from that day forward was straight and narrow: he joined the military and successfully graduated from the Air Force's pilot training class at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. But that was just the first step in what became a career as a professional aviator.

In this moving memoir of hard work and dogged determination, Powell recounts the rocky road he traveled on his way to becoming a commercial pilot. Despite the diversion of a teenage marriage and divorce, and friends' ridicule, James's determination never wavered.

Read how author James Powell used his gift of tenacity, believing he could do anything if he worked long and hard enough in Of Dreams and Coveralls.