OFF TO PARADISE

C.A. Collins was a wide eyed Kiwi kid when she boarded a Pan-Am McDonnell Douglas DC-7 at Whenuapai Airport, N.Z. in early March, 1960. They were a family of five, her younger sister, toddler brother, mother and beaming thirty-six year old mechanical engineer father who had landed his dream job managing a plastics plant in Honolulu.

The extension on their cramped abode was finally finished just as he flew off to America in June, 1959, attending his, first of many, Society of Plastics Engineer's meetings. That year the SPE gathering was in New York City.

It was here in the Big Apple the author's father met a fellow from Hawai'i with a problem he needed a manager for new plastics plant in Honolulu after two unsuccessful hires. Then Americans were given top priority before foreign hires. The criteria to enter the United States to stay indefinitely was "very" stringent. What can you do for America, not what can America do for you - dominated immigration decisions; those with STEM skills were given top priority.

The drive from the Leeward side (Honolulu) to the Windward side (Kailua & Kaneohe) of O'ahu:

Collins writes:

Many pass this way everyday

Still the first time it takes your breath away . . .

the drive from Honolulu to Kailua through the Nu'uanu Pali Tunnel

The aroma of fresh Hawai'ian flowers fills the car from the fresh flower leis . . . everywhere I gaze there is a proliferation of flora. Hibiscus . . . ruby reds, sunshine yellows and lipstick pinks . . . we ascend the Nu'uanu Pali Highway . . . I'm swept away by one of O'ahu's most spectacular wonders of nature -- a waterfall cascading down precipitous cliffs.

The town of Kailua is where the family calls home for nearly a decade awaits on the other side of the Nu'uanu Pali Tunnel and her first visit to an American supermarket . . .

Welcome to Paradise - E Komo mai

Off to Paradise is part of a set of three titles:

The Billionaire and the Bishop Trustee and Lunch with the Big Kahuna

Dettagli