In 1971, in Oahu, with a beautiful Korean-American young woman named Cho, a beautiful young Chinese woman named Alice, and a handsome young Army man named Patrick with red-brown hair. I still had nine months to go in the Army, but was now free of the occasional trips to Indochina that had ever made my stay on Oahu a mixture of skulls and roses, death amid romance—a rare conjunction the likes of which never occurred again but in its continuance. Ever love and live what rains forth from the all-giving skies of the Tiki-Gods, who even operate far away and way up above, gathering the forming vapors into clouds that cross the ocean, picking up moisture on their way, unto climbing the Pali Mountains and cooling with their fine, refreshing sprays of mist. Cho rode her motorcycle over to pick up Alice from her class at the University of Hawaii, as on every alternating day, to take a short ride over to ‘Bananas’, where they would serve up sangria and light meals. Alice didn’t look exactly like Alice that day. “Hi, Cho Ling. It’s me, Princess Alice Chow Wong.” “I nearly didn’t recognize you, with your painted face.” “It’s my mid-term project for my Cosmetics-Fashion elective course. Most of my computer courses are done.” “It looks sad, although its quite lovely and very well done.” “It’s supposed to be sad. I am ‘Painted Sorrow’. My uncle died in China, a month ago, and now my money is low.

Although I’ll still graduate in three months, I can no longer afford my rent. I keep my clothes and stuff in a gym locker, and shower there, too—even sleep there.” “You can live with Patrick and me in our tented mountain retreat, and squeeze in and sleep on the edge of the cot near Patrick; I’ll be on the other side of him; I sleep toward the wall. We’re returning the favor from when you let us stay with you and Vince.” “Really, I could do that? Right next to him? Squeezed?” “Any problem? There’s a grand and beautiful view up there. We have peace and quiet, with a table, and food.” “Yes, the problem is that I like Patrick. He’s always helped me do program, and is trying to get me a job.” “I know you like him; I could tell as soon as I came along.” “I wasn’t ready then, anyway, but I was more and more drawn. I’d pretend to sleep in the computer center, to lean close to him, and I’m sure he knew I wasn’t really asleep. It felt great, but I was all involved in schooling.” “I know; you were his friend from before I arrived.” “Then I went with good old Vince for awhile, strange as he was, since Patrick was with you, so I respected you both, but there’s yet another problem.” “Thanks, and I think I know what it is, but please tell me anyway.”

“The big problem is that I love Patrick.” “We’ve done three with Colleen; don’t bring pajamas; we don’t wear clothes to bed. If something happens, just go with it.” “Will do.” “I’ll call Patrick right now and tell him and ask him be–fore we start work. He’s at the fort doing his one day of work a week. The war has long been winding down.” Cho smiled, and Alice said, “And the answer is?” “The answer is that he’s going to buy a roast duck in Chinatown for us to eat to celebrate your arrival.” “Thank you; my spirit is lifting; I am growing wings.” “It’s 4:30, Alice. It’s time to go and ascend the mountain. Grab three bottles of sangria-allegria; it’s OK.” Alice Rising Alice hopped on the back of Cho’s motorcycle, and they picked up some of Alice’s clothes and things, and then took off on the H1 freeway toward Fort Shafter. The white-gloved MP waved them in, and Cho pulled to the side a ways off, near a pond with rocks and water–falls, and a bench, which they sat on. “Alice, I’m stoping here for a moment to tell you what to expect, for its a difficult approach to weather, but I’m good at it. I’ll have to go a bit faster since you’re on the back. It’ll be noisy, bumpy, and quite heart pounding.” “OK, I’m feeling emotional, in a good way, and raring for adventure after all these years of college study.

Are we going all the way to the top?” “Just about. Hold on tight; it’s winding and curving.” “Describe it all to me; I’m wide with anticipation.” “The extent of our mountain camp retreat is actually within the confines of Fort Shafter, in a scenic part unused for anything else. There are points atop the mountain from which one can see Diamond Head, Tripler Army Hospital, Honolulu International Airport, Hickam Field, the Punchbowl crater, Pearl City and Pearl Harbor, and everything in between. “Down the road a ways and off to the right, we will approach at high speed a seemingly near impossible steep embankment to breach, and yet we will surely accomplish it, and after after powering up it there will a long jump through the air, from which we will land well, and then a sharp left and sliding turn onto a path six feet wide or so that goes up very slightly, at first, as it rounds the base of the mountain, but we will keep up some speed, until a wide right curve brings us back to another, higher angled traverse, but not that steep, yet, really, but ever gaining height on its long way around, which will be about the mid-point. So far, it’s relatively easy, although slightly rough. Don’t try to counter balance on any of the curves; just go with them; we will not fall.

“Then there is a tremendously steep climb right up towards the ridge, and, upon getting there, I must be very careful riding along a two foot wide path, for only some bushes separate us from a terrible fall down to the Like–Like highway running far below. I will keep to first gear, for power, and so it will be a grind. No stops. “There is then a leftish turn onto the higher ridge toward the back of the mountain and here the trail apparently ends, but the rest of the trail around and down is really just blocked, and very treacherous. “We could use the other trail for an emergency escape if a fire were coming up the front of the mountain. “It seems as there is no retreat there, nor anything much at all, but it is slightly down and beneath, tucked into the cliff-side, and so one must walk and climb down a rope ladder or jump to it; however, there is also an invisible and more circular route to it if one is not in the mood, although it is laced with jutting rocks. “There, in the nook of an open cave type of arrangement, our tent is tucked in, with the wide double cot placed in the back, where the ceiling has sloped down somewhat. The tent doors can usually be left open on the usual fine day.

“There is a slight grassy ‘lawn’ out front, with enough room for lounge chairs, and a table, and beyond that is a sheer drop, so be careful. The view faces toward the air–port and its reef runways jutting out into the Pacific.” “Well, I’ll be damned,” Alice replied. That’s what I call living on the edge. What a wonderful arrangement! You can do this ride with me on the back?” “I could do it in my sleep and I’ve done it with a load of stuff on the back nearly as heavy as you.” “Nearly?” “I’ll go a wee bit faster. We’ll start in a moment or two.” They got onto the motorcycle and veered off to the trail, while no one was in the vicinity, up the short initial hill, and vaulting through the air, and coming down square. … Nearing the top, they caught the view from the back–side, of where the mountain chain headed off. “We’re here. I’ll go down first and hold the rope ladder steady; just climb down, holding with two hands.” The dinner table was set, out on a kind of porch built from some reddish wood, in an oriental style. I came out to greet them, receiving a hug front and back, Alice saying, “I am your shadow and Cho is your light; we ladies are as sundown and sunrise.” I said, “Wow!… There’s a clothes rack inside, Alice. I’ll carve the duck and pour the drinks.

This is now your home; no more sleeping behind rolled up gym mats.” Alice took in the view that was hard to process all at once from this higher point, wherefrom there was so much to see, afar, and then nearby, where the birds flew below us, while the wisps of clouds seemed to be well within one’s reach, along with a sense of being above it all and beyond the nonsense on the ground. The Hint of the Project I related, “I just received a strange postcard from Mike, my boss at IBM. It had an image of a computer on it with a lightning bolt superposed, with a short message on the back in big letters that read, “Help! Big Opportunity,” and in small print at the bottom it read, “Will call at 6 PM, your time, Tuesday, and each day, as needed, to make contact. Think silicon!”. Cho responded, “That’s four days from now; he’s moved up his monthly call to you by more than two weeks. He has a dilemma, and it’s probably related to some programs and data that you worked on.” Alice added, “Computer chips have silicon as a major ingredient; maybe an improvement has come about.” As we devoured the crispy duck, and drank, the sun shone its warmth on our skin, it heading for the ocean, into which it would plunge in about an hour.

I looked at Alice, “We’ll say ‘Yes’ to Mike’s needs, that we can help or even do it, from here, by you, I, and Cho, and with probably someone coming out here from Poughkeepsie. Mike said last time that he was going to IBM Germany but was coming back for a big meeting in Fishkill, which is where chips are made.” Cho realized, “It’s not something that was planned, for it is an ‘opportunity’, as something unexpected, such as Alice hinted. It is a much faster chip, one that Mike’s just confirmed or will, in Fishkill, today, Friday. On Monday he will gather his plot in Poughkeepsie, sizing up the ways to go forth, and then call us on Tuesday.” Alice went on, “He wants to bypass all the usual testing and time-consuming procedures, given that he already has a working logic design implemented in the current slower chips. He wants it to be somehow cleanly but quickly remapped into the new and faster but very different chip technology, in a new oxide process, perhaps, even radically non bi-polar, maybe, with no changes but for the clocking and the other latch pin placements, with no new features to the machine. The new chips are both blessing and curse.” Cho deduced, “The urgency is because there’s lot’s of money to be made! That’s Mike’s reason for being.”

They were right on the nose, I thought, saying, “The new technology needs to be more than twice as fast to warrant a new machine. Customers can easily get that the speed has been doubled. Meanwhile, a new and improved logic design on a truly revamped future machine can go on normally, though its two-year development time, or more, since one of the features is to be 32-bit addressing, up from 24, which will affect all the compilers as well as all the ‘dirty’ type programs that too cheaply used the extra 8 bits of the 4 byte address word to store flags. What a mess!” Cho remarked, “‘Help!’ perhaps means that Mike might not know if a remap can be done. Their regular process is going to be too slow, maybe, with all the pins having to be readjusted by hand, although all the same way, which could introduce errors, or the process has been compromised. Something is afoot that he didn’t tell us yet, but the benefit outweighs the risk of us doing the work offsite, for you can’t just leave the Army and go there. Do you have all of the information, Patrick?” “I have all of it carefully stored away, in triplicate, awaiting any and all contingencies, in locked bins.”

For dessert, we had bread pudding, and then walked a ways to a slight valley’s pond that had the only water in the whole mountain range, we being in its foothills, taking off our clothes and going skinny dipping, for it had been an unusually warm day, like 86-88 F. They floated to me and I embraced and kissed them both, my memories of deaths in Cambodia transformed into the life of the present, between special creatures who were overbrimming with love in this nexus of space and time that had arisen from a potential that was so far beneath and long ago. We then did some homework and wiled away the evening under the stars that hinted of the grandeur and the extravagance of all that is, speaking of Korea and China, Taiwan actually, along with whence we came to coexist, and how we might ever continue to flourish amid the slings and arrows of fortune.