The dream is always the same. I’m lying on the kitchen table. Mamaw is standing beside me, wiping my forehead with a cloth. Papa and Dr. Knox are talking softly.
“Can the arm be saved?” I hear Papa ask.
“It’s too damaged. If we don’t amputate, infection will set in and he will die.”
I hear the soft clink of metal as Dr. Knox lays out his instruments. He turns toward me with a cloth in one hand and a bottle in the other. He places the cloth over my face and opens the bottle.
“Ollie, the ether has a strange smell, but it will help you rest. Now, breathe slowly and deeply.”
“No! Papa! No!” I scream and try to get up. “Please make him leave me alone! I’ll be okay! Please! Papa! Please!”
“No, son,” Papa says as he and Mamaw hold me down. “There is no other way. Dr. Knox is right. Mamaw and I are here. We will be with you.”
The room begins to spin. I struggle and cry out, “No! Papa! No!”
Then everything is dark.
It’s been years since I had that dream. I guess I’ve gotten so used to not having my arm that my mind doesn’t replay it anymore. But recently the dream has returned. It is a terrible, frightening dream. But then, it’s not a dream; it’s a flashback. I’m again experiencing that horrible day fifty-five years ago when I lost my arm.
Years ago I would wake up fighting with all my might to keep them from taking my arm, crying for Papa to stop; but then I’d realize it was over—had been over for days, then months, then years ... As I woke, a feeling of total uselessness would engulf me. How can I be or do anything? What kind of worthless life is in store for me? I would think of the old Civil War soldiers, sitting around Papa’s general store, maimed and broken, unable to do much of anything, fed and cared for by their children and grandchildren. I would bury my face in my pillow and cry myself back to sleep, begging for God to make me whole again.
In the past few weeks the dream has returned with a vengeance. I guess as I look retirement square in the face, my emotions are getting stirred up. The uselessness of retirement must be striking a familiar cord in my mind, bringing back memories of long ago.
For months—or has it been years?—my fellow workers have been hinting that it’s time for me to retire, time for the one-armed old man to relax, slow down, and enjoy life. Time to let someone with a little less gray hair take the torch and run with it. Or in my case, someone to take the Morse key and keep the never-ending stream of dots and dashes flowing through the wire.
When they bring up the topic of retirement, I try to make light of it. I usually laugh and tell them that I’ll be there long after they’re gone. But deep down, their comments do bother me—bother me a lot more than I let on—because I know they are right. Fifty-four years at a desk is a long time, and as much as I hate to admit it, age is taking its toll.
Over the past year or two I’ve come to realize that I am not as sharp as I used to be. I find myself having to ask for messages to be repeated—something that a few years ago I would never do. And the tapping on the Morse key seems to have gotten fainter. Noises that at one time never bothered me make messages hard to hear. Was that dit-dah or was it dit-dah-dah?
Sometimes I worry that messages are not complete, that I’ve left out a word or two. No big problem for a message from one loved one to another. But in a two page contract, an error can be disastrous.
Anxiety and doubt are starting to creep in, overshadowing my love for my dots and dashes, telling me that it is time to stop.
But I don’t want to retire. I love my work. I can honestly say that I love it as much now as I did in 1891, when Mr. Matthews let me tap out my first message over that magical wire: MY NAME IS OLLIE PARKER IN LOCKHART. sTOP. CAN YOU HEAR ME. STOP. i can still remember the excitement, the rush, when a few minutes later a message returned from Meridian: MESSAGE RECEIVED. STOP.
Telegraphy is my life. For over five decades I’ve viewed the world, not through a window or a book, but through a wire—a copper wire not much bigger than a piece of string. Messages sent in the form of dots and dashes. Cryptic communication to most people, but to me messages as easy to understand as reading the front page of the local newspaper.
The entire concept of telegraphy continues to fascinate me: the mechanics, the miraculous speed of communication, and the messages. Messages that let me see the far reaches of the Earth, and messages that allowed me to see into the very hearts of men. Every day has been an adventure—each day as new and bright as the day before.
And to think: the summer before I was introduced to my beloved dots and dashes, the summer of my thirteenth year, I was convinced that my future was over, that my hope of having a life worth anything had been snuffed out, lost forever, victim of a foolish teenage prank.
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