and Words
Livin’ easy
Lovin’ free
Season ticket on a one way ride
Askin’ nothin’
Leave me be
Takin’ everything in my stride
Don’t need reason
Don’t need rhyme
Ain’t nothin’ I’d rather do
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
I spent the summer before my senior year in Miami. However, I didn’t sit surfside on the beach as you might expect; I spent it in a classroom. I spent the school year sharpening my skills at mathematics and programming. I didn’t know what I’d be doing with it; I simply knew that I was good at it, and I enjoyed it. In the mid 1980’s there were really only two activities for computers: games and word processing. And really, we had game consoles for the former as well. There were a handful of us who opened the inches of documents in three-ring binders that came with computers. We meticulously looked at these tomes and cryptic references to something called BASIC, and that’s how we started programming.
Truthfully, I didn’t even know about the summer program. Ms. Barba, one of my teachers, pulls me aside and mentions it to me, she encouraged me to apply. I don’t even remember the application; I honestly think that she simply wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation or perhaps placed a phone call. This is the same teacher who guilted me about cutting school too frequently years before, “Mr. Wong, you’re out of school more often than you’re in school.” However, she watched me changed course over the two years that followed. I’m eternally thankful for her faith in me.
The University of Miami hosted a summer program for computer related studies, I think it was called CRESS, Computer Related Engineering something Studies. I may still have some papers buried somewhere with its description. However, I didn’t realize at first, that this program included room and board. This would be my first time away from home. At the time, I wasn’t sure if computers or engineering was something I wanted to do. This program clinched it for me.
On our first day, once we settled in our dorm rooms, we all wandered into the hallways and congregated. While we were mostly young men; there were also a handful of women. Most of us lived in Florida, though some of us arrived from other states; all immediately became ‘family’. There were even a handful of familiar faces from my own high school. Our counselors, thinking that we would be timid, scheduled a mixer for that afternoon, by that time we had already been chatting for a while. We knew the names and the faces.
We stayed at Eaton Hall, which sat right in the middle of campus. It overlooked beautiful Lake Osceola. Having grown up in Florida, I overlooked its sheer beauty; now, I simply wonder how I didn’t notice it more. Furthermore, I seem to remember that there was also a cheerleading camp because we’d occasionally see the young women shuffling in or out of the dorm in uniform. Naturally, we were fascinated but we rarely crossed paths. This summer program wasn’t simply a sneak peek at engineering and programming, but also at college life.
Each day we shuffled out the walkway that overlooked this beautiful lake. Next, we would walk through the breezeway or the student union to get to the cafeteria. After breakfast, we walked to the engineering building where we took classes or worked on labs. I don’t remember what we did in the evenings, save watch the occasional movie. Though, I distinctly remember eating pizza and watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail that summer. I don’t think we spent a whole lot of time doing homework.
We spent the days bouncing between three classes. CAD (computer aided design) drafting, Programming (in Pascal), and Logic circuitry. Each had a classroom and lab session. Sometimes, we used our computers to draft a technical drawing. Occasionally, we built the circuit for the carry bit on a two-bit adder. Lastly, our final project was a programming assignment. My partner Alex and I wrote a Mastermind program after the board game.
During a particular morning, we call decided during breakfast that a number of us would bring an apple back for our teacher. We simply slipped it into our pockets while we walked out of the cafeteria. Once he arrived, there were about half a dozen apples on the table. This teacher was also the head of the program, and he taught us logic circuitry; these are the building blocks of microprocessors.
We event spent a day at Epcot Center. On one particular day, we shuffled into a bus in an obscenely early morning and make the hours long trip to Central Florida. Meanwhile, I decided that I wanted to be struck by one of the famous jumping water jets at Epcot, so I did… squarely on the chest. I endured the wetness for the hours that followed, even into a cold bus. It was a moment of fancy and silliness. Though given the same set of circumstances, I’d happily do it all over again.
By the end of that summer, I realized that I found my calling. Engineering was an intuitive extension to what I truly enjoyed. For instance, I was driven by a natural curiosity to how things worked, both natural and artificial. As a child, I ruined a few toys by taking them apart to see how they functioned. Though it wasn’t limited to discovering these marvels, it was also a question of creating new things. Engineering is the delicate dance between the analytical and the creative. It’s in that delicate space between the natural scientists and the artists where I found my home.
That summer, there was an attendant at the front desk of Eaton Hall; he always wanted to engage us in conversation. Inevitably, he consistently steered our conversations to religion. It was a few days before our counselors finally warned us off about him. He apparently has done this to everyone who was staying there that summer. They referred to him as ‘John, the Baptist’. I have no objections to people of faith, any faith. However, John’s conversations were unwelcomed and intrusive. We were teenagers, away from home for the first time, and hyper-geeks.
A meeting room sat a short distance from the front desk. On more than one occasion, we would play music loudly while we congregated there, and he attended the front desk. As you might imagine, we played AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” at an obnoxiously loud volume, certainly loudly enough for him to hear. He stopped cornering us in conversation, but I think some of us continued to play the song. Each time I hear this song, I return to that summer in Miami and those friends. I even chuckle at our playing of this song to spite that attendant.
I did mention that we were teenagers, right?