Math Memoir

The Brobdingnags of Gulliver's Travels needed bops with a balloon occasionally to get their heads out of the clouds, so to speak, just as we do, apparently. I am reminded on line that this month is Math Awareness Month. That's a new one on me. When I happen into a grocery mart, I often see as I finally arrive at the card register, little hints at what to donate to. I always do, because what's an extra dollar or two when the bottom line of your bill  includes about twenty items at two hundred loons? The one or two dollars all meld to make the world a bit better for someone else. On the counter, there are small candies, ribbons or plastic flowers as rewards to remind us about the month it us. I appreciate the nudges for most causes, but Math? When I went to high school, Math was my downfall. I will always believe that when my assessors took a look at the chasm that separated my English and other marks from the basement level Math ones, they must have thought its meagerness to be a misprint. Somehow I got into university, thanks to the possible "misprint". But I shudder at the Math memories of a Secondary School teacher who was renowned for his physical attention to those who did not turn in their homework. In those days, a good whack with a ruler was an accepted reminder to get your close attention, and the minor whack worked very well. Mr. Smith, I shall call him, with apologies to all the Smiths out there, was a teacher in our small city.  We were all forewarned about Mr. Smith. Before I actually flew out of the Junior High School into the big house, my beloved Grade Ten to Twelve dwelling for the next three years, there was only one disadvantage, and it was called Trigonometry. Algebra I did understand remotely, because to get through Chemistry, you saw the logic of it. Arriving at a wrong outcome in an algebraic formula in Chemistry might just end up exploding everywhere and ruining a perfectly good St. Michael's sweater. In  those leaner days, a sweater meant a lot of babysitting nights at twenty five cents an hour. But back to Math. Ugh. As much as I tried, desperately to fathom the use of its purpose in my life, knowing sines and co-sines, I couldn't find it. If I had chosen Physics, I am told, it would have been perfectly clear, but it wasn't, and truthfully, it still isn't. Give me Shakespeare over a book of Logarithms, and I am there. Fortunately, after high school, none of my courses included that kind of mathematical genius. We need Maths for all sorts of practical reasons but with the advent of  devices, logs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc are just a finger walk away. No need to put much brain effort in now. So little effort, in fact, Math is no longer in our heads but in our hands. These days, Math answers don't have a margin at the sides of pages with desperate numerical penciled workings. "And I am going to SEE how you arrived at that answer, young lady!" in Mr. Smith's commanding shout, is no longer a fear in my dreams. While we all need Math, I am greatly relieved that I seldom have to encounter it other than my budget. Ooh, I love that on-line sale sweater. Now, where is my calculator?