This was a very special Straight Key Night for me.  I had the honor of using a key that belonged to a 15 year old ham from Milledgeville, GA, named Carl Rodney Brookins (Buddy), W4BPK.  He used the key while employed as a Postal Telegraph Operator in the 1920's.

Times were so bad during the depression that, at the age of 15, he quit school after the 9th grade to help support his widowed mother and siblings.  He got a job delivering telegrams and was quickly promoted to telegraph operator when they learned that he could copy code.

His sisters told me that he rode his bike to and from work every day, a distance of 7.5 miles each way.  They said that rumor had it that he was so fast with this key that other operators always had to ask him to slow down!