I felt an obligation to tell the story about the Sugar Mill and to create something that would keep that special memory alive. The feedback from my questions yielded the obvious; the Sugar Mill was the main attraction and the foremost memory of Aiea.

Other responses to the question, "What is special, or reminds you of Aiea?" are worth mentioning. Aloha Stadium, the Freeway, and the Aiea Tree were all mentioned quite often. Another popular answer to the question about going on a journey was a school bus. Then I realized that Aiea Elementary is situated between the H-2 freeway and Aloha Stadium, and that the children must get on a bus to get anywhere. I decided to incorporate all of these elements into the composition, just emphasize some, and minimize others.

The composition is somewhat complex and surreal; it is an illustration of the passage of time, and we are driving in our school bus off the freeway of "Our Future" and parking under the Aiea Tree, to "talk story" and reminisce about the days of the Sugar Mill with the people who worked there. Indeed it is a story, a page in a book, about to be turned to the present.

Some of the subtle things worth noting in this mural are the sugar cane flowers, or "tassels" which one who worked at the mill never saw because the cane was harvested before it flowered. The hand in the upper right of the mural is pushing away the old cane that will never be harvested again as it turns the page of time.

The reflection in the back window of the bus is Aloha Stadium, along with Aiea's zip code on the license plate and the menehune school mascot on the back of the bus.

All 355 students and 26 faculty members painted the 7 ft. x 19 ft. tile mural in 10 days and cost $8,500.

This was by far, the most sentimental mural I have done for a school.