The rugged basalt, towering cliffs, and tendril waterfalls of the Columbia Gorge were formed thousands of years ago in the rocky Cascade mountain range by sudden floods from Montana. Those floods were the subject of a spirited scientific debate earlier in this century, mostly forgotten now, between establishment scientists proclaiming gradual geological evolution and a small band dismissed as pushing catastrophic geological development. Having only recently won the argument with those who believed in Noah's flood, the establishment science experts weren't about to entertain any catastrophic explanations for the Columbia Gorge. They destroyed the career of a young geologist named Bretz in the process, taking twenty years admit their error. Today, in the late twentieth century AD, "the Gorge" has a barren, scrubbed look to it. The topsoil is thin to nonexistent in many places, and the dense trees exist only due to the heavy rains and occasional mudslides from higher up in the Cascades which regularly sweep through. The geology which spoke so clearly to those who would hear, to those who didn't simply accept what was "known" by all sane people to be true, is still there, still telling its story today. It is a hard place, a beautiful place, and a popular destination for the hordes of city dwellers in the Willamette valley, an escape from their everyday, humdrum, artificial existence into a world of awesome power. The Gorge reminds them, subconsciously, that building worlds is still totally beyond man's reach.

It's a long drive from the city of Corvallis to the Columbia Gorge, where the nuclear winds blow. Up I-5, through the smog and snarls of what is by far the Northwest's ugliest city, Portland Oregon, and onto I-84 headed east. On this Sunday morning Bill and Steve have started out before dawn, heading for the windsurfer's nirvana. The Gorge is the lowest point between the huge Columbia Basin and the sea. The waters of the entire basin area, as large as the state of Nevada, drain through this narrow point. The raw power of those waters was long ago tamed by the Bonneville Dam, providing electricity to Portland. Not so the air currents. It is the preferred route for air motion from one side of the Cascade Mountains to the other, cubic miles of air flowing through the gap daily to generate what can be cyclonic conditions.

The morning is warm and clear, and the wind doesn't disappoint as they enter the west end.

"Look at those white caps! I won't be using my large sail today, Bill" said Steve in anticipation.

"No, I think you're right, at least not this morning. It may calm down after awhile though, so it's still a good thing you brought the extra sail along" Bill replied. "It's a beautiful day for this, Steve. The sun is going to be coming up just as we get our boards in the water. Where do you want to set in?"

"Lets go all the way to Hood River. The hatchery is my favorite spot."

"Fine. That will be just about right, I think. Are you prepared for today's surfing? No breakdowns in the middle of the river, like last time?"

Steve laughed. "No problem, I took your advice and went through everything before going to bed yesterday. Things are set. Besides, with the luck I've been having lately everything's going to be cool." He smiled.

Bill frowned. "And why do you think dame fortune is smiling on you?"

"Huh?"

"What makes you think you're so lucky."

"Oh." Steve was occasionally caught off guard by his friend's phrasing. "Well, there was last Thursday's ultimate Frisbee, when everything just clicked. I had an incredible date with Jenny earlier, and then there was, uh, Michelle...."

"And?"

"Yeah, well, maybe Michelle wasn't exactly good luck. There was something odd about it, but Randy certainly would have been impressed. I think Sachico would have been too, so I suppose that means I was pretty lucky."

"So how's work going?" Bill inquired.

Steve frowned a bit. "Well, I've been having some difficulties with my version of our new fluidic system, but I'll get it right."

"So what's this about luck? Most of life's good things come through preparation, Steve. You aren't planning to get that printhead working through sheer luck are you? I mean, even if it did work out that way, you still wouldn't admit it?" Bill pressed.

A bit sheepish, Steve admitted, "Well, no, I would never plan on luck getting me out of a technical problem, but I'd certainly admit it if it did work out that way. Then, of course, I'd have to go back and figure out why. And I can see how that applies to windsurfing, of course, in that I need to prepare in order to keep things from breaking down at inopportune times, so score one for you. But there are some things that dumb luck plays a role in, like whether or not there are winds in the Gorge when we get here. No amount of human preparation can make it blow on cue"

"Well, true, true, you can't make it blow on demand. Wisdom includes recognizing that which you can effect and that which you can't."

Steve went on. "But how about that ultimate game, or Jenny? I mean, yes I've practiced and worked out a lot, but neither Jenny or ultimate can be guaranteed by preparation, can they?"

Bill smiled a bit, then replied, "No, they can't be guaranteed, Steve. There are basically three classes of events, those you can control by preparing for, those you can't, and those that preparation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for control of. I have found that many of the latter involve human interactions."

Steve, somewhat triumphantly, said "So, that proves me right, doesn't it. While I prepared for the game and Jenny, the portion that I couldn't prepare for went well and I was lucky."

"Ah, but you said you were on a streak of 'luck'. If so, explain your problems."

"Well... the inkjet problem is clearly just a technical difficulty that requires more investigation, thus fitting into your first problem category. It just needs more work." Steve paused here, not sure he wanted to continue. He knew Bill well enough to recognize that he was being maneuvered into a moral discussion, one that would probably be edifying but potentially painful. Maybe it was a good time to change the subject.

"Wow, did you see that falls back there? Sure is beautiful in the predawn light."

Bill answered, "True, it's gorgeous on this drive. That's one of the reasons we come this way."

Silence filled the cab as Steve stared out the window at the tumult of cold lava and trees, pillars and waterfalls that rushed by. Why not go ahead and discuss what happened with Michelle with Bill? He was no prude, and appreciated the way of a man with a maid as much as anyone. But Bill seemed to be interested, somehow, in how he was doing with Jenny, and talking about Jenny and Michelle in the same conversation really felt odd. And was it really a case of a man having his way with a maid? Or vice versa?

Steve and Bill remained lost in their thoughts until they arrived at their launching point.

As they pulled up, Steve shrugged off what he'd been thinking about and begin looking forward to the day's sailing with anticipation again. Bill was fun to do things with, but his philosophical discussions could certainly put a gloom on things. Nothing like real life to clear a guy's head, he thought as he slammed the door shut and went around to the back of the van.

"Help me get my board out Bill, and I'll come back and help you get yours."

"Sure, sure, as soon as we get this thing in the water you're gone, I know! Will you look at that sun peeking over ridge there?! God, what a beautiful sight. And look at that river! We've got the whole gorgeous thing to ourselves. Not to make a pun! Ha, this is gonna be great. You better not plan on running off and leaving me here to get this board set up by myself."

They kept up an excited, friendly banter for the few minutes it took them to get into their wet suits, assemble the boards and get them into the water.

The day, as promised, was heavenly. Since this isn't a windsurfing story, the description will be short, but the day was very long. Both young men were really in their prime, and they had the strength and stamina for a full day of strenuous physical exercise. It was beautiful, the traffic on the river light almost all day, there were few barges to avoid, the weather was unseasonably warm, and the wind was brisk without being brutal. Steve, who hadn't been windsurfing as long as Bill, learned a lot that day by watching his friend's moves, listening to his instruction while on the beach, and practicing those moves throughout the long, boisterous time on the rolling Columbia. He set a personal record by hanging in the air 3 seconds, almost twice as long as ever before, after launching himself off a passing barge's wake. Hang time.

It was on one of these seemingly endless air floats, with the sun, wind and spray whipping around him, when time seemed to stand still as he floated through the air, that Steve came to the sudden knowledge that he was really loved, and that unselfish love itself was real, not just constructed from neural impulses. The knowledge made him giddy, and his giddiness lasted an eternity. And then he was racing on. Life was good. Just like that.

At lunch they took a break and had some sandwiches they'd packed the night before.

"Isn't this great? The world is a wonderful place" said Steve, lounging back in the sand.

"Can't argue with that. You know those beer commercials, where they claim that life doesn't get any better? Those guys are usually fishing or something. What a waste. Someday I'll be old and crotchety, and then I'll think fishing is the ultimate existence as well. Until then, this is the life," Bill replied.

Steve's first impulse was to agree, but his critical mind swung into action and he found himself trying to think up ways to improve on the situation. Aloud, he said, "Well, I could improve on this, I think. Jenny could be here, and I could be teaching her to sailboard." And at that, it seemed like a small cloud passed over, and the surreal brightness of the air dimmed a little.

"True, true, I guess it might be possible to improve on this in that respect. Maybe we'll have to invite her next time? Actually, I wouldn't mind having Cindy along. She and Jenny are pretty good friends, I think, so that would probably work well," Bill said.

Steve, trying to shake off the sudden vague malaise he felt, answered, "Well, yeah, that'd be great. But they aren't here now, so, let's get back to it, OK?"

"Right." And they were off again, essentially two boys with great big sailboats that they could actually ride on. The sun shown warmly for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening, finally tiring of their sport, they loaded their van up with the gear and drove into Hood River to get something to eat. Settling into a likely looking local restaurant (Bill couldn't see eating in chain restaurants, though Steve didn't see what the big deal was), they discussed the day's activities, trying to hold it in their memories.

"Did you see me when I cut across the wake of that grain barge, Bill?" Steve asked. "I got at least a foot of air under my board on the jump, and I landed just perfectly. I was going so fast that I caught the other wake before it could get to the shore and went over it. Actually, I came closer to crashing when I went over it, because I didn't have enough velocity differential to jump it and the board nosed down on the other side."

"Wouldn't have been your first fall of the day. But I did see it, and I was impressed with the first jump. Actually, I'd have to say I was more impressed with your ride over the wake going the wrong way, since I've seen a lot of people lose it when going over the curl backwards like that, but you've got a pretty good sense of balance. Did you realize there was a girl following you across? She turned up river when you approached that wake. I think she expected to see you crash, and was actually disappointed when you just slipped over it. What is this strange influence you have on women, guy? Do they all like to see you crash?" Bill asked, with a lift to his eyebrow.

Steve thought for a second, taking the question much too seriously (it was hard to tell when Bill was joking). "Well, some do and some don't, so I guess the answer is no." And once again he felt the hesitation to continue on down this path of reasoning, once again that little element of darkness seemed to creep over his disposition. Shaking it off, he decided to forge ahead and get it over with. Somehow he knew that he had to discuss Michelle with Bill before he could get life back to "normal". Steve still believed that life could be normal, a common failing of the young.

"Now Jenny, she wouldn't ever want to see me crash." He smiled a bit wanly, and went on. "She'd probably scream or something. Sachico would just look on somewhat interested, like a cat, but I don't think she'd get excited one way or the other. She'd pick up the pieces, of course, if it was too bad, but it would be a bother. Michelle... I think Michelle would enjoy watching anyone fall just for the fun of it. She seems to live in a world of her own, though, doesn't she."

"Well, yes, I guess I'd have to agree," said Bill. "Steve, do you think you had 'good luck' this week with Michelle?"

Here we go. "Uhmm, well, I'm sure Randy and Sachico and Michelle thought I did. Jenny didn't seem to think I was particularly lucky."

"And Steve? What did you think?"

"There was preparation to this, you know."

Bill pressed in. "Yes, but who did the preparing? You? Michelle? Or was it Dame Fortune?"

"Actually I prepared, but I was preparing for Jenny that evening. How I ended up with Michelle is kind of a mystery. Well, maybe it's not that much of a mystery. She'd talked to me a couple of times in the previous two days, and she knew I was going to be there that evening... in fact, she arranged it. And actually, it isn't often I see her dressed to kill like that; it was a real distraction." Steve came to a realization he'd missed up to now, and felt like an iron lugnut. "I guess Michelle was the one who prepared for the evening, wasn't she, and I was just lucky enough to be her target." But somehow he didn't feel lucky; he felt used.

Randy observed this, but let it pass. "So, you were indeed lucky, but not in the way you might have thought earlier. Steve, are you doing any thinking about life in general? Has it ever occurred to you that preparation isn't just for sailing or for technical problems? See, we figure out what we want to do, we do it, and then we die. It's all kind of a dead end, but it's all we've got. If you prepare properly, life can be a heck of a lot of fun, like sailing today was. What do you want out of life, Steve? What's going to make you happy?"

Steve smiled. "You always pop out such easy questions, Bill. OK, what's going to make me happy? Well, I want to be rich enough to run around and do whatever I want. I don't want so much money that I have to spend all my time controlling it, just enough to live well. I've spent a lot of time preparing for that, so I guess I'm not just totally drifting along."

Pursing his lips pensively, he continued. "But I think your question is more pointed, more directed toward my personal life. I've thought about being single all my life, and in fact while I was with Sachico it seemed like a great idea. Didn't require any planning, didn't take much effort, and things were good. My parents always talked about their single days on campus and in the Village as the best part of life, the freest, the most liberated. And it always sounded so good compared to the drabness of wedded bliss. As somebody once said, marriage is a fine institution... if you want to be in an institution. Sachico was fun. But that kind of blew away, and left me feeling, sort of, empty somehow."

Bill asked, "How did it end?"

"I don't know, we just seemed to have run out of things to do together and suddenly she wanted to see someone else and I was in the way. I mean, we didn't have any big blowup or anything, it just kind of stopped being interesting for us. Actually, I can't even say there was ever any 'us', because we both lived very separate lives other than sleeping together. In looking back on it, the whole thing seems kind of hollow, but I remember feeling pretty smug about it at the time. Mom and Dad thought it was great."

Steve continued. "Believe it or not, Bill, I have begun planning, or at least dreaming, a bit about the future, and it mostly involves Jenny. I don't know, but somehow she occupies a lot of my day dreams anymore. And they aren't daydreams like you or I have about Michelle, they're daydreams like, I don't know, like an old Disney movie with Haley Mills or something."

Bill nodded, smiling a bit. "The daydreams about Mrs. Michelle Emmons tend to be kind of short and active, don't they? Those old 'Disney dreams' take a lot longer and usually end by being interrupted. If you want your life to be like that, you're going to have to seize it, Steve, to prepare for it and then do it. It seems to me you've got a great opportunity for a really pleasant life with Jenny, kid, and that you might have blown it with your active relationship with Michelle. You seem to be wandering past a great opportunity to have a wonderful life."

"How do you know anything about my relationship with Michelle?"

"Nobody has anything but short, active relationships with her, OK?"

Steve was surprised. Bill was pretty thoughtful, and he'd normally avoid saying anything like that. "Bill, is any of this your business?" His indignation couldn't last, though. "But I guess I agree with you. Before you say it, I will. Jenny demands commitment before sex, which any number of guys will attest to at work. Up to now I've always thought that was bogus, but in light of what you've said I'm not so sure. She wants to have a long and happy life, and limiting herself like that certainly keeps fly-by-nights like myself away. I'm just beginning to realize that I, too, want a long and happy life, and that monogamy might just be a valuable component of the good life. But what happens when we don't enjoy each other anymore, Bill? Sachico and I were able to part company so smoothly, so cleanly. There wasn't any messy divorce, no lawyers, no irate mother-in-law, no sleeping on the couch. I mean, didn't monogamy go out with the fifties, Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe?"

Bill looked up from his hands, and with surprising vehemence answered him, "You made it too easy, and that is why it went away. Things that are easy to do, get done. Things that are hard to do, do not get done. If you want a long and happy relationship, you need to structure your life to make it hard to get out of that relationship and easy to stay in it."

He cooled down a bit, then went on. "I'd say that means finding the right young woman, who, by the way, I think is right in front of you (metaphorically speaking of course...), and then sharing a lifelong commitment with her. Divorce is an ugly thing, Steve, and there has been too much of it. Our 'enlightened' fore runners from the 60's saw to that. But we tend to get so frightened by it that we forget the beauty and the happiness of a good marriage. No pain, no gain, eh? The easy, sloppy, lazy way to bumble through life is just to keep moving from woman to woman, making no commitments and getting no real lasting joy in return. The harder, but fulfilling, way is to choose to commit and then carry it through. I've come to realize that love is a choice, Steve, and it's a choice that too many of us have avoided because we fear the consequences. It's time we stopped living in fear, and started living in hope."

Steve looked at him, wondered about what he'd just said, and then a smile slowly crept across his face. "Bill, you turkey, you're just getting yourself screwed up to marry Cindy, aren't you? That's why you're lecturing me, isn't it."

Startled, Bill smiled and admitted it. "Well, actually, there is some truth to that. Cindy and I haven't been saints, but I don't want to live like I've seen you and Randy and Sachico and Michelle live. I don't want to do that to Cindy, for one thing. For whatever strange reason, she's chosen to love me, and I appreciate that. Do you realize how rare a thing it is to be loved, Steve?" His voice took on a kind of awe, and he looked out the window at the passing traffic in the gloom of late evening. "She actually cares more for me than she does for herself. Do you know that she had a chance to take a promotion back in the bay area and turned it down? I found out from Freta in human resources. When I asked her about it, she looked embarrassed, then cross, then just resigned and said, in kind of a small voice, that she just didn't want to be away from me. Steve, she doesn't like the rain here and misses the bay area terribly, but she cares more about keeping me happy than herself. She's even jealous, for crying out loud. It's incredible. How do I go about responding to that? Now, Cindy isn't perfect, but I think we can be very happy. And I think we have what it takes to make it last a lifetime. Many people do it, and we're not going to be losers."

More controlled, he looked straight at Steve and continued. "If I know anything about people, you and Jenny have the same opportunity. I think you love each other, and I've been hoping you'd figure it out. Think about it Steve. You're at a crossroads here that I hope you haven't already passed through. You can either continue notching up (or being notched up by?) girls like Michelle and Sachico until you're too old to make (or be worth) the effort, or you can share life in love with Jenny. I'm your friend Steve, and as your friend, I'm telling you that Jenny is the better option."

They looked at each other for a second, then, embarrassed, both looked away. "Pay the tab, kid, and lets go. Don't embarrass us with the tip, either" Bill said.

"Me?! It's your turn to pay for dinner" Steve replied with mock indignation.

There is no problem more intractable for any group of engineers than trying to figure out who's going to pay the bill for dinner. Though it started somewhat later than planned, the dark drive home was at least uneventful.