The Un-muddled Mathematician

By Chris Coray, The Un-muddled Mathematician
 

This column is actually a mystery story. 
See if you can figure it out as fast as my father did.

I am the eldest of 3 children.  My dad was an attorney for the Union Pacific Railroad.  He was a very smart man.  Among other things he had to parent a smart alec kid (me), as well as my younger brother and sister.  When he was not pleased with some behavior issue of mine he would look at me over the top of his glasses.  So long as I was looking at his eyes through his glasses, all was OK, but when he looked at me over the top of the lens it was time to be very careful.  There would be questions and a bunch of unsatisfactory answers from me.  It was like being the guilty guy answering questions in court, with a blinking neon sign “I’m guilty” on my forehead. 

All of us were expected to do well in school.  For me, math was always so easy I didn’t have to work very hard.  Other subjects required effort.  And my dad always felt that English and Language Arts were more important than math (in his mind).  He was right about that, too.  We got six report cards a year.  When I turned 14 and was in the 9^th grade I brought home my first report card of the year.  There it was, in clear writing at the top, the letter “C” in the grade box for English.  That night at the dinner table it got very quiet as he read the card.  I was looking at eyeballs, no part of his glasses getting in the way.  He said, “What is this?”.  My answer was feeble, stupid, and unacceptable.  He said, “This will not do.  Not ever again”.  End of discussion.

The next report card came at the normal interval.  Again, at the top of the card in the appropriate box was the dreaded “C” in English.  Do you have any idea how long it is between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., with no chance for a reprieve from the governor?  There was no place to run or hide.   When he saw the grade on the card he asked no questions at all.  He just said that he would meet me in the teacher’s classroom the next day immediately after school.  That was not a fun wait.  I mean, how embarrassed can one get at age 14, knowing that your dad was coming after school to talk to your teacher—about you.  I wanted to crawl under a rock.

At 3:30 the next day I was waiting as instructed at the back of the classroom.  School was over but the teacher was at the desk in front, waiting.  My dad’s Florsheim shoes clicked down the hall as he strode into the class.  Remember, being a high powered attorney meant he was always well dressed and imposing.  He could also be mentally terrifying (never mean, just all-knowing from my perspective).  I’m sure the teacher was nervous.  Not, however, as much as I.  He stopped at the door, looked at the classroom, looked hard at the teacher, and looked at me.  30 seconds of absolute silence. 

 Then he walked to the front of the room and introduced himself to the teacher.  She was increasingly nervous.  He said, “Where does my son sit in this class?”  The answer was the front row, right in front of her desk, at most 5 feet from her chair.  He said, “Please move my son to the back row and as far from your desk as possible.”  She immediately agreed but certainly didn’t understand why.  From then on it was all “A’s” in English.  By now you may have figured this out.  I was 14, the teacher was perhaps 23, first name Ann (I reserve the last name in case she is still alive).  She was stunningly beautiful, wore exotic perfume, and taught while standing about 3 feet away from me.  This was a universe I had not previously experienced but all the chemicals in my adolescent body were in overdrive.  I had no chance.  The solution was increase the distance from the X chromosome.  It worked, at least for 9^th grade English. My dad figured this out in 30 seconds without asking a question.  I told you he was smart.  Most dads are.