Fly 'n Things

“Cessna 69N, 20 miles south of Atwater, say intentions?” asked  NORCAL Aproach.
“Request ILS 31 approach into Atwater”  responded I.
“Decend and maintain 5000, fly heading  310”
“Roger” said I and eased back the throttle to  2000rpm to start a slow descent from the 8000ft we were flying on our way to Atwater and turned to a heading of 310. Nothing happened! The VSI still stayed at zero. The tachometer read 2000rpm. What was going on? It din’t look like we were descending even an inch.  I pulled back some more to 1500 rpm. Still nothing happened. I scaned the other instruments to take stock of the situation. It was only a month ago that I had flown. I couldn’t possibly have forgotten how to fly. What was I missing. As I glanced over the airspeed indicator, it read 80 knots. My heart skipped a beat. We were slowing down…