40 Years in Less Than 2 minutes

I had this dream last night that included a mixture of events in my working life.

I was back aboard the biggest aircraft carrier I had ever seen. It was my first day back aboard an aircraft carrier (much bigger than the Kitty Hawk I served on in 1966-1968) many years ago and I was working in an electronic repair shop.

Kitty Hawk shown below.

 My work was on a huge tabletop sized circuit board, like the ones I worked on at Litton. I needed a voltmeter and while I was looking for one, someone swiped my oscilloscope probes, (something common when I worked at Burroughs.) The shop was run by Ted (my old boss at Burroughs) and Dale (my old boss at Litton.) I needed some documentation so I left for document control but the clerk there could not help me when I did not have the correct part number, (again like Litton.) Heading back to the shop, I got lost (easy to do on a new aircraft carrier) and I couldn’t get anyone to help me. I wandered about the ship, wondering if I would be able to stay in and finish for retirement or have to leave just shy of my 20 years. There was a navy cook who offered to help me, but he couldn’t find a layout of the ship to point me back to the shop, (reminding me of my time lost (93 days) as a galley mess cook early in my navy career.) I finally found my way back to the shop and when I walked in Ted and Dale were looking over a huge circuit board laid out like a plot in a combat information center, (reminding me of my days as an airborne combat information operator in the navy.)

The dream seemed like a composite of 40 years of my working life. 40 years wrapped up in a dream that may have lasted less than a minute or two.