Forever Gone but Not In Volatile Memory

Jenny writes a moving story about a love that burst into her life and then, too soon, was forever lost. I, too, have such a story.

In 1984 I bought a Hewlett-Packard HP-11C calculator. She was truly a work of beauty. She was wide, but not tall. Questing fingers found keys easily. The keys gave just the right amount of tactile feedback. The two special function buttons never missed a beat. Her display was a simple, one-line LCD, readable even in dim light. She was knurled plastic and burnished aluminum, and the batteries lasted forever. I carried her in my pocket.

We worked together late into the night. We became a team. My fingers explored her mysteries and learned her and, without conscious thought, flew over her keys to calculate equivalent impedances and new vectors. We generated phase angles with ease. Laplace and Fourier transforms became a light dance of fingers flying, flicking, figuring.

Imaginary numbers never felt more real.

Nor did I set her aside when I graduated. Oh, no. Together we moved on into a new world of real work, real paychecks, and numbers that had an impact on the real world. Every day I took her to work in my lunchbox, and every day I took her home again. We were a pair, steadfast and inseparable.

Until 1990, and one dark autumn twilight.

I will never know what silent voice bade me turn and look. An instinct, perhaps – a sense of something missing. Something wrong. I sat at a stoplight and turned my body to glance behind me. There was a small rack on the back of my motorcycle where my lunchbox rode, secured with a bungie cord. No bungie cord has ever failed me. But this time, I failed the bungie cord. I … I forgot … forgot to put it on.

My lunchbox was gone.

My HP-11C … gone.

Tears streaming in the bitter air, I drove frantically back along my path, scanning the streets and gutters of North Highlands for my lunchbox and its precious occupant. The fading light revealed nothing. The gutters were … not clean; but they didn’t hold my lunchbox. No plastic thermal container lay in the street, buffeted by passing cars but protecting my faithful companion. All the way to the office I rode, searching wildly in all directions. Scanned the parking lot. Asked random strangers if they had seen a blue and white lunchbox lying anywhere on the ground. But it was all to no avail.

Gone.

I’ve had other calculators since. Well, one. She was not the same. Sure, she had all sorts of buttons and functions and even a graphing screen. Big deal. I was out of school now. I had a computer at my desk. I didn’t really need a calculator anymore. She was a passing fancy, a bridge, a comfort to help me move on to another stage in life. Despite the high quality of Hewlett-Packard tactile technology, we never really clicked. The new one? I don’t know where she is today. I don’t even remember her model number.

It’s a new era, I suppose, and I’ve outgrown the need for a pocket calculator. Richer, more complex vistas engage me now. But I know I’ll never forget her, and there will always be a place in the book bag of my heart for my HP-11C.