When I was a child of six, Mother boosted me onto the Trailways bus to North Little Rock. "If Uncle J.E. isn't at the station to meet you," she reminded me, "you know his phone number and address." She had hammered those critical numbers into her firstborn's head so thoroughly that they took up permanent abode: FRanklin 4-8022 and 2410 Pike Avenue.
At particular times, certain numbers have become axes around which my little world has spun. Peculiar symbols representing tangible entities, they were shortcuts for understanding and explaining and imparting meaning. They defined so much of what I was–and what I was about–that I committed them to memory.
Foremost among these stalwart helpers in my college days was Pi, the key unlocking doors of many engineering conundrums. In reality, Pi is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle and has a value of approximately 3.142.
Similarly, the square roots of two (1.414) and three (1.732) were also comfortable friends, having oft made themselves familiar and indispensable through our daily associations and shared experiences. Likewise, e (2.718), a number of eminent significance in the natural sciences, rounded out the foursome. But today, Pi and company recline on the bench of unused numbers, seldom getting the call to throw themselves into the games we once enjoyed.
As a power plant engineer, memorized weights and heat contents of various fluids such as water, steam and fuel oils were ever at the fingertips of my thoughts. But no more. Like the characters of a forgotten story, they bump around in the fog of a plot whose details have been lost.
As a new driver, I eagerly let the numbers on friend's license plates pigeonhole themselves into easily-accessible memory compartments. Forty-something years later, however, instant recall make scant demands: a few key phone numbers, two Social Security numbers, three or four addresses. Contrarily, the programmed keypad of my cell phone handles high priority ciphering. Pressing 2 rings home, 3 our son, and 5–right in the center of the pad–my wife.
As an employee, I never enjoyed being "just a number." But Tolstoy observed, "A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction." Numbers whisper secrets we'd rather hide.
My current number line has dwindled to the most basic of integers. There is one God who has two admonitions for me to follow: love Him and keep His commandments. My family is small, only three here on earth–but four in heaven one coming day.
Should I live to be 70, the 82 percent marker glows in my rear view mirror.
Like pickets in a fence row, remaining days click by to the road rhythm of Psalm 90: "So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." Success lies in my ability to not lose count.
Copyright 2003 James McAlister
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