Journal of a Living Lady
#143
Nancy White Kelly
President George Bush coined the phrase, “fuzzy math.” Let it publicly be known that I was the role model for bumfuzzling mathematics long before George W. Bush was in politics. When I was a chubby adolescent struggling for breath in seventh grade gym class, I ran the mile in pretty good time I thought. When I announced to my parents at supper time that I had run the mile in under two minutes, they bent double with laughter. After regaining their composure, my parents assured me that I hadn’t galloped near so well. The fastest race horse in that day ran a mile in one minute and thirty-nine seconds. Secretariat I was not. It was an innocent mistake on my part.
Math has never been my strongest subject. I faked my way through mathematics my entire life. When I completed Algebra I in the 9th grade, my teacher passed me on the condition that I wouldn’t take Algebra II. My college advisor wasn’t so obliging. If I wanted to graduate, I had to have math credits. Timing was on my side. I got by because math philosophers in the early 60’s were temporarily skipping algebra, geometry and calculus. They taught set theory instead. It was like sorting colored blocks and sticks in kindergarten.
While I am a member of Mensa, don’t think I am some brilliant, grown up whiz-kid. The left side of my brain compensates for the right…or is it vice-versa? I took the high-brow IQ test on a whim like many other tests in my life-time.
Just recently I renewed my driver’s license. The examiner look puzzled. Not only did I have a Commercial Class C license, I had approval for hauling hazardous material and for driving tankers. It was a whim thing again when I decided to shoot the moon at test time. Can’t you just see me wearing my Mensa ball cap while driving a tanker full of anti-nuclear waste material to Mississippi?
In the early 1980’s, I registered Buddy and me for printer’s school while we held full-time jobs during the day. We both got certificates saying we were qualified to run printing presses. That course actually proved useful. We published a computer-related magazine for non-profits until cancer struck me the first time.
Insisting that Buddy go to printing school at night was my way of getting him back at him for signing me up for private pilot license training. He was the one who really wanted to fly. If I trained to fly also, it would justify buying a 1960 Cessna 150 airplane. Now we both have licenses in our billfolds, authorized by the FAA, saying we can drive a plane. Can’t you just see me, in my Mensa cap, flying a hazardous load of bombs to Afghanistan while Buddy throws out “Love ya” pamphlets printed on an A.B. Dick press in our garage. Life often takes our experiences to unfathomable horizons.
I have always been a perpetual mountain climber. Not literally, of course. Hiking and spelunking are too ordinary and physically exerting. I like off-beat challenges. Our attic is full of yellowing diplomas and certificates. The most unusual is the one I earned in ornithology from Cornell University. No, ornithology has nothing to do with teeth.
Take the challenge. Get out your dictionary and look up ornithology. I may have winged it in math, but I know my birds.
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nancyk@alltel.net
