The Unmuddled Mathematician

The 25 Year Joke

By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

As a young man I learned of a joke it took my grandfather 25 years to complete.  It was a good one, but that’s another story.  However, the notion of trying one of these was implanted early on in my twisted mind and so I started mine.  If you think about it, it quickly becomes apparent that a joke of such duration likely involves a person known to you for the whole 25 years, namely, your spouse.  So it was with me.

My modus operandi for our 48 years of marriage has been to periodically state some completely ridiculous statement about science or math and have this utterance immediately and loudly laughed off by my wife.  The problem she faces still is that 9 times out of 10 my statements are purposely completely ridiculous and false (deserving her laughter) but 1 time in 10 are in fact strangely true but just sound ridiculous.  This plan gives her occasional pause before she pounces on my crazy utterances.  She is in a tough spot.  My sympathy is not forthcoming.

When we were first married we would travel to California once in a while.  Driving our little Chevy Nova back home we often passed through Reno, following the Truckee River down the canyon in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then eastward.  About 10 miles east of Reno there was an illusory piece of geography with the river at the bottom.  I very casually told her that this was the only place on earth where water flowed uphill for a little ways.  It sort of looked like it did.  This was never forcefully stated but just mentioned in passing like, “Gee, isn’t that a pretty blue sky”?  I never defended my casual remark even when severely challenged by the boss but just moved on in conversation. 

This practice continued for 25 years, not annually of course, just on those trips we drove past that same spot during our travels.  She always indicated that it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard (and I was full of dumb notions) but I never engaged in further argument or defense.

Our eldest daughter married a wonderful guy named Steve, from Randolph.  This was great, a new addition to the family and finally another male.  There soon came a time after the 25 years of marriage when we took a family trip to California, sightseeing, camping, introducing the new son-in-law to extended family.  Bobbie wanted all this to go well as it was the first chance for him to experience the weird side of his new in-laws (mine), and she wanted it to go well.  Near the end of the trip I remember camping in the lovely campground near Donner Pass.  The next morning we had breakfast, loaded up, and began our last leg of the trip, eastward along the Truckee River.

Maybe it was nerves on her part, maybe something else, but with our son-in-law in the car we reached that spot spoken about above.  It was there that she, not me, perhaps in an effort to impress him, told our son-in-law that this was the only place in the world where water flowed uphill.  Being very polite, Steve didn’t say anything but the look on his face told me that he wondered what kind of nut case family was now part of his.  My wife looked at his face, realized what he was thinking, in less than a nanosecond realized my story of 25 years was just junk, and began the nearly fatal beating of her husband.  It is hard to laugh when your arm is being pounded over and over but I managed. 

I’m not sure to this day what Steve thought about the whole thing but I learned that in planning a 25 year joke it would be wise to consider the unintended outcomes.  I now play tennis left handed.