Not Exactly a Séance
My dad is still on the ventilator, which means, of course, that he can't talk.
As it happens, he was a Morse code operator in the Navy back in World War II, and when you have a job like that for the better part of 25 months, 27 days, 16 hours, and one minute (his exact length of service, as he has been telling me all my life), you don't soon forget the dots and dashes that make up the alphabet.
Therefore, if he were so inclined, he could easily tap out just about anything he wanted to say.
But although he taught me the whole alphabet once when I was a kid, this is a case in which I appear to have the polar opposite of total recall.
I can't even tap out SOS with confidence, because I can't remember which is the S and which is the O. One is three dashes, and the other is three dots. If I were stranded at sea, I could easily see myself sending out a nonsensical OSO message, over and over again.
In any event, since Morse code is not an option, I devised a simple alternative. I wrote out the alphabet in big block letters on two facing pages of a journal that my mom had brought to the hospital. My dad spells out messages to us by pointing at the letters one at a time. (We tried having him write, but it's hard for him to hold the pen and even harder for us to read his handwriting. )
Observing this variation on the hunt-and-peck method is oddly like sitting around a Ouija board—there's an air of mystery and anticipation because we never know what the next letter might be.
But sometimes the messages are both straightforward and heartening. For example, here's one from today:
W-H-E-N-C-A-N-I-E-A-T
Soon, Dad. If there's any justice in the world, soon.
As it happens, he was a Morse code operator in the Navy back in World War II, and when you have a job like that for the better part of 25 months, 27 days, 16 hours, and one minute (his exact length of service, as he has been telling me all my life), you don't soon forget the dots and dashes that make up the alphabet.
Therefore, if he were so inclined, he could easily tap out just about anything he wanted to say.
But although he taught me the whole alphabet once when I was a kid, this is a case in which I appear to have the polar opposite of total recall.
I can't even tap out SOS with confidence, because I can't remember which is the S and which is the O. One is three dashes, and the other is three dots. If I were stranded at sea, I could easily see myself sending out a nonsensical OSO message, over and over again.
In any event, since Morse code is not an option, I devised a simple alternative. I wrote out the alphabet in big block letters on two facing pages of a journal that my mom had brought to the hospital. My dad spells out messages to us by pointing at the letters one at a time. (We tried having him write, but it's hard for him to hold the pen and even harder for us to read his handwriting. )
Observing this variation on the hunt-and-peck method is oddly like sitting around a Ouija board—there's an air of mystery and anticipation because we never know what the next letter might be.
But sometimes the messages are both straightforward and heartening. For example, here's one from today:
W-H-E-N-C-A-N-I-E-A-T
Soon, Dad. If there's any justice in the world, soon.
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 8:22 PM
2 Comments:
Jody,
Thought you and your dad could practice!!!
http://www.learnmorsecode.com/
Please tell him that I am praying that he will be up, out and drinking a diet coke very soon.
Love,
Cathy
SOS is
. . . - - - . . .
you can remember it because it takes less time to transmit than its inverse......
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