An Equation for Redemption

Recently I wrote a few sentences about mathematics that could have been construed as less than supportive of the discipline.  Yes, the word “hate,” was used, as in, “I hate math.”  And I admit making comments on number-related activities that were interpreted by some ardent supporters of math as hostile, combative and insolent.  One perturbed reader, former high school math teacher John T. Goegel, went to lengths to posit the notion that my lack of “determination and sweat equity” was akin to being an historic quitter of the highest order, writing, “Where would our country be if the occasionally dispirited General Washington and his ill-equipped citizen soldiers had given up during the long six-year struggle for independence?” 

But these were word problems, not finding escape routes in the Long Island fog!  Word problems are much harder.  Mr. Goegel, however, did make me think.  No sooner did I question my math-phobic resolve than I received this email:  “My name is Diane Barlow, and I teach Pre-Algebra at Rundlett Middle School.  I shared your article with my math class.  We thought it might be FUN if you came to my class and let the students explain how they set up and solve word problems.  We have a system in place that makes solving word problems a little bit easier.  You did ask for help at the end of your article, and my students are very willing to help.  I hope to hear from you soon.”
 

This is why I’m sitting in the front row of a seventh grade math class, surrounded by twenty eight pre-teens who are smarter than me.  It’s never a good idea to make fun of math.

A few minutes ago, as I stood in the office with Diane and the school principal, Tom Sica, I admit being a little nervous, anxious the kids would smell my lack of math skills like a portly toddler smells cake batter.  “Take a deep breath – you’ll be fine!” Diane reassures me in her soft, southern accent.  You can always count on a middle school teacher to find the good in everyone.

As we walk down the hallway, I wonder if these children know how bereft of math skills I am.  The last math class I sat in was in early May, 1985 as Brother Eck extolled the virtues of pre-calculus.  I avoided taking a single math class in college, and even though I was an elementary school teacher for five years, I was never beyond arm’s length of the teacher’s edition.  If I landed in an uncompromising math-related position with my fifth graders, I’d use that saving grace of every numerically paralyzed instructor, the phrase, “Well, what do you think the answer is?” as I sprinted back to the answer book.

We arrive at the class, and I’m ready to atone for the sin of hating math.  Diane’s students wait in line outside the door.  Somehow Principal Sica is here too.  Is he making sure I apply myself today?  Brushing up on his own word problem skills?  He sits in the back so it’s tough to discern his motives.

Mrs. Barlow (we’re no longer on a first name basis) starts the class, reminding us we’ll spend today, “Writing equations that model the problem,” emphasizing the importance of “solving for x.”  I’m sitting in between my new pals Brendan and Cam, and I nod like I know what “solving for x” means.  I don’t.

Our first problem reads, “Chuck jogged the same distance on Tuesday and Friday, and 8 miles on Sunday for a total of 20 miles for the week.  Find the distance Chuck jogged on Tuesday and Friday.”  The boys are off, scribbling into their notebooks, apparently solving for x.  What’s clear is my attempt to just come up with the answer isn’t cool.  Cam suggests, nicely, “You have to write an equation that solves the problem.”

“Yeah,” Brendan adds, “Because what happens when you don’t know the answer?”  He’s not asking a question, like he’s saying, “How will you ever be anything if you don’t believe in yourself?”  How true, Brendan, how very true.  They help me write an equation and follow the rules to help solve for x.  We arrive at the right answer as Mrs. Barlow walks the class through the approach.

There’s no time for lollygaggers at Word Problem Boot Camp, and we’re on to the next set.  Hannah and Sophie replace Brendan and Cam, and I ask Sophie what she thinks of word problems.  She doesn’t hesitate to say, “It gets easier as you practice it."

“The sum of five even integers is 0.  Find the integers.” What? I have absolutely no idea what this means.  How can you add five things and get nothing?  Is this pre-algebra or pre-philosophy?

My new partners write down what starts like a nice line of numbers but ends up looking like a plumbing schematic for an aircraft carrier.  Sophie and Hannah are in their own world.  I ask a few questions and take diligent notes as the girls solve the problem in a creative way.  Negative numbers!  Who knew?  Before we switch again, Mrs. Barlow asks whether zero is an integer, and as they ponder the question, I have a series of deep thoughts about the value of nothing.

Josh and Eric sidle up to solve a two-step equation involving birthdays.  As we work through the problem, they wait patiently for me to catch on, and by the time we’ve determined “Reid’s value is represented by x+14,” I can see what Mrs. Barlow’s talking about.  Her system is making sense, and as the boys swap out with another pair, I’m feeling like I might finally belong in a middle school math class.

Caitlyn and Anita arrive to tackle a complex problem involving a school band competition, fund raising and wrapping paper.  I’m warming to the task and start to understand what solving for x actually means.  Caitlyn, however, has no time for a forty-six year old man with equation issues, and she blazes through the problem, blurting out the answer without writing anything down.  She speaks softly as she puts pencil to paper to show her work.  At this point, Anita knows enough to let Caitlyn do her thing, and I follow her lead.  Caitlyn whips through the multi-step equation and even makes an off-hand comment about the distributive property.  I just bask in her glow and regret leaving my tax returns in the car.

The class flies by.  Between four sets of partners, the teacher’s encouragement and the realization these kids are both better at math and taller than me, I’m humbled and impressed.  Forget Finland – America’s gonna be just fine in the numbers department with kids like Mrs. Barlow’s late afternoon pre-Algebra class.  They can solve for x with the best of them.  As for me?  I’m a work in progress.

Learning to Hate Math All Over Again

                “Can you help me with my math homework?” my daughter calls to me from the living room, motioning to an open textbook, pencil in hand.  Nothing strikes terror in my heart like the words “math” and “help me” – except maybe “crawlspace” and “clown suit.”  Doesn’t she remember the last time I tried to “help”?  All that remained were broken pencils, wrong answers and shattered innocence. 

                “She doesn’t even need me – she always figures it out on her own,” I think as I walk across the room, looking like “Happy Dad with Math Smarts” but feeling like “Moron with Self-Esteem Issues.”  My heart races as a weird rage wells inside me.  “Please let it be a number question and not a word problem – I can’t do word problems, and this will end badly.”  I want to smash the math book and run into the street, telling my daughter and the world, “I HATE MATH!”

                I’m a grown man with a career, a belly and a bad haircut, and I despise math.  It wasn’t always this way.  After high school, I nurtured a healthy, mature relationship with numbers.  For my part, I agreed to use a calculator, and My Dear Aunt Sally promised to steer me away from a career where making change was paramount, like a carney selling corn dogs on the state fair circuit.  But this word problem in front of me ends the détente.  Right there in the middle of chapter 1.3 of Algebra 1, I learn to hate math all over again.

                The question reads, “You are shopping for school supplies.  A store is offering a 10% discount on binders and a 20% discount on packages of paper.  You want to buy 5 binders originally marked $2.50 each and 10 packages of paper originally marked $1.30 each.  Write an expression that shows how much you will save after the discounts.  Evaluate the expression.”

                I can think of a few one-word expressions that would help me evaluate this question, but none are very mature.   After a distracting harangue about the price of school supplies and the merits of three-ring binders, I realize she senses my incompetence.  I come clean, telling her, “I don’t think I know the answer.”

                “Dad, most adults have a basic understanding of this stuff,” she says as she closes the textbook and walks away.

                I know “hate” is a strong word.  When I was a kid, my mother fined me a nickel every time I said it.   One week I might owe $.37, and maybe $1.16 the next.  Those five-cent pieces really added up.  I wish I could explain in mathematical terms, where x is “hate,” y is “pre-teen angst” and “genetic deficiency” is the variable coefficient of the commutative property, but I can’t because I don’t know what that means.

                Please temper the lamentations about your carefree days at Long Division Sleep-Away Camp, and don’t remind me of the era when a cubit really meant something.  And please can we not discuss Finland?  Yes, it’s true a few hundred Finnish 5^th graders have stronger math skills than the entire American public, but have you ever been to Finland?  Me neither, but I hear they eat reindeer.  Blitzen burgers and Comet nuggets?  Finland’s one root cellar mishap away from adding elf chops to its national menu, so I’ll embrace my mathematical mediocrity.  The Finns can have Jaako the Abacus Legend of Lapland, and I’ll stick with fonder memories of Christmas, except that time I got a set of multiplication flash cards in my stocking.  Worst Christmas ever.

                I appreciate those of you with a zeal for all things numerical.  The world needs working bridges, accurate checking accounts, Mars robot trucks and forty-eight ounce Big Gulps.  Without math, we’d never know how much Mountain Dew is really too much.  So math students, teachers and rocket scientists, keep those quantitative noggins chugging.  Leave me alone, but would one of you please call me to help with my daughter’ math homework?  I can’t get past Chapter One, and it’s gonna be a long year.

Sandeep and Sully

Describing a trip to India to someone who’s never been there is like explaining a dream from last night that makes you sound outhouse-rat bonkers. “And the podiatrist was this super tall pelican with a Wisconsin accent, a hammertoe and a creepy smile who forced me to watch Beaches and eat kelp. And then he tried to kiss me with his huge swollen Barbara Hershey lips . . .” Just like the 7-foot seabird foot doctor, you can’t explain India until you see it, and then when you see it, you can’t explain it.

Preparation for my 10-day trip to India began with a friend loaning me her latest copy of Yoga Journal – you know, the one with the lady doing a yoga pose on the cover. “India? You must read this article about yoga in India and self-discovery!” she said, handing me the magazine. This is in drastic contrast to my co-workers who told me nothing about self-discovery but a lot about what not to eat – as in, “You will discover yourself locked in the bathroom for a day of gastric distress-induced hallucinations if you don’t follow our advice.” Their warnings were endless. Don’t eat salads, avoid milk and ice cubes, eat fruit only if you peel it, brush your teeth with bottled water, close your mouth in the shower, don’t swim in the pool and, for God’s sake, avoid the chicken salad boxed lunch in the office because, “I swear it is not chicken.”

This advice was followed by office-mandated vaccinations and prophylactic regimens. Between the hepatitis A, B and C shots, the polio and typhoid needles and the two weeks of malaria pills, I felt like a preventive-care pincushion, steeped in concoctions recommended by the State Department, my company’s wellness center and that tiny voice in my head reminding me that a sick day 8,100 miles from my binky and favorite pillow would be awful.

The trip started with a delayed flight and a missed connection in Paris, not a bad place to get stuck for a day – except that France’s national social air conditioner was broken during the start of a Parisian heat wave. After sightseeing and melting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in the midsummer swelter, my one evening in the hotel was like spending a night in a Comanche sweat lodge. Visions of famous Frenchmen visited me as I lay naked, sweat pouring off my body. Jacques Cousteau was a peach, but that Marcel Marceau was far too loud.

And then to India – destination Bangalore, in the southern state of Karnataka, one of the largest cities in India and the center of the country’s blooming love affair with technology. The city has doubled its population to almost 9 million people in the past 20 years, much of it fueled by foreign companies finding top-notch technology talent from the many universities in and around Bangalore. But before I could see this for myself, I watched the Air France chief bursar announce in French and English that by law she must disinfect the plane’s cabin as she tore off the top of two giant aerosol cans and strolled down the aisles, letting the misty-sweet chemicals drift onto us as we settled in for the nine-hour flight.

Sleep didn’t come easily – one night I might crash before dinner and then other nights I’d watch hours of cricket matches and Bollywood music videos, heading to work sleep deprived, wondering why there are no foul balls in cricket and where those people learned to dance like that! And the looming potential of eating the wrong thing was never far from my mind, but when the open butter masala dosa or the naan bread soaked in olive oil or the chicken dish with mint sauce spicier than a kick to the mouth was offered, I threw caution to the wind. These forays into a new world led me to interpret every slight rumble in my stomach as either a natural shifting of its contents or the opening salvo in the War of the Water Closet in Room 624. I’m happy to report that conflict was averted, and all was quiet in my corner of the sixth floor.

All the advice, recommendations, shots and menu suggestions did not prepare me for my first commute to work. The road swelled – buses, cars, motorcycles, scooters, more motorcycles, jaywalkers, traffic cops, bicycles, stray dogs, wandering cows, even more motorcycles and a hybrid scooter/car/taxi invention known as the “auto-rickshaw.” Exhaust fumes and the deafening staccato roar of car horns filled the air, everyone using their horns as a substitute for actual coherent driving. Scooters darted in and out of fast-moving traffic as cars swerved and dodged them and each other. Pedestrians made eye contact before stepping into what would be sure death on Main Street but here was only a hesitation and a honk. It was complete chaos – a family of four on a motorcycle (“Baby gets the handlebars!”), a man in a horse and wagon, a teenager pedaling a gearless bike draped with a massive bunch of coconuts and barefoot children walking to school as a pack of ownerless dogs and cows grazed on piles of garbage near a storefront sign advertising “Instant Jesus Vegetables.” No crescendo of sound or rising swirl of action culminating in accidents or confrontations or even a single Long Island Third Finger Salute – just a steady cacophony of movement, and everyone, even the dogs, knew where to go and how to get there.

It would be easy to dismiss India as too other-worldly to appreciate, too far-removed from my perspective to yield anything other than bewilderment. But I can’t. Indians are not much different than Americans. From the north-south differences in food and dialect, to the dashboard Vishnus to the countrywide obsession with cricket, Sandeep from Bangalore is a lot like Sully from Everett, in his Patriots hoodie, a cross around his neck, a Bruins bumper sticker on his car and a double-meat lobster roll and cheese fries from Kelly’s in his lap. Except Sully doesn’t use his car horn like a nervous tic, and his dog’s at home waiting for his nightly walk instead of wandering the streets looking for a snack with his bovine best friends.

India is a dream – noisy, chaotic, incomprehensible and indescribable. It’s a dream you keep to yourself, holding it in your hands. Trying to explain it only lets it slip through your fingers until it’s gone.

A Night on the Lake with Captain Dave

It’s close to 1 AM in the early hours of the Fourth of July, and there’s a man with curly hair sitting a few feet away from me trying to touch his fingers to his nose with his eyes closed, his head tilted back.  A Marine Patrol officer stands in front of him, watching every tiny move the man makes as our boat rocks back and forth.  A steady stream of boaters races past us out of Weirs Bay, their wakes pushing our boat from side to side.  I’m seated behind the boat’s windshield, and with our engine idling and the roar of other boats, I can’t hear anything the two men are talking about, but it doesn’t look good.

About ten minutes ago, this gentleman came within three feet of changing all of our lives for the worse.  Only my captain’s quick thinking saved both our boats and all the passengers from a fate too grim to contemplate.  My captain is Officer Dave Jones of the New Hampshire State Marine Patrol, and if he hadn’t slammed our boat into reverse, this captain, Captain Doofus, would have crashed into our steel hull, the three children in his bow would have catapulted off into the murky night, and he’d be sitting in the Laconia lockup, wondering which night was Pepper Steak night and who his roommate would be for the next eleven years. 

This is our third stop of the shift, each getting more intense the later the hours creep towards the Fourth of July.  With days of rain followed by a miserable heat, every boat owner on the lake, it seems, is out tonight, and few of them seem to have any idea what they’re doing.  Dave suspected Captain Doofus was drinking, watching him as he searched for his license and boating education certificate.  “Have you been drinking tonight?” Dave asks.

 “I’m the designated driver tonight,” Captain Doofus responds, avoiding eye contact and busying himself with a pile of papers in his lap.

“I didn’t ask you if you were the designated driver.  I asked you if you’d been drinking,” says Dave in a less than tolerant voice.  It’s taken the entire shift – since 5 PM – for Dave to express anything other than patient explanation, but considering what almost just happened, he’s clearly annoyed.

“Yes.  I had one beer,” the curly-haired Captain replies, but Dave’s not buying it.  Within moments, Dave has the man on our boat taking a series of dexterity and memory tests.  Our new guest passes by the thinnest of margins, avoiding hand cuffs, a tow to the station for the breathalyzer, and an awkward call home for a 1 AM ride home while explaining to his kids that “Daddy will be fine” as Gammy rings the family attorney.

 

Dave hands Captain Doofus a ticket for his lousy driving (“150 Foot Safe Passage Violation” for $84.32) and tells him he barely passed the sobriety tests, instructing him to anchor his boat for an hour and sit tight before heading home.  “That guy came very close to ruining his life,” Dave says as we motor away into the humid night.

It’s been an eye-opening evening.  I met Dave earlier at the Marine Patrol’s headquarters on Lake Winnipesaukee in Gilford.  Dave’s been a seasonal office for the Marine Patrol for the past six years, working as a cop in Alton when he’s not on the lake.  Minutes into the patrol, it’s clear Dave is the Navigating Savant of the Lake.  Winnipesaukee boasts 274 islands, and Dave knows them all.  I point to one after another, and their names roll off his tongue faster than our twin engines spins their props – Pig, Bear, Rattlesnake, Eagle, Mink, Nine Acre, Six Acre, not to mention Jolly, Dollar, Dow, Diamond, Long Pine, Little Mud, Big Beaver and Far Ozone, to name a fraction.

The lake is enormous, the second largest behind Moosehead in Maine (not including Lake Champlain, bigger than both combined).  By foot, you could walk 182 miles around the entire lake, through eight towns and two counties.  By boat, the longest stretch is from Center Harbor to Alton Bay, over twenty five miles long.  Dave’s the lone Marine Patrol officer on the lake tonight, the first at the start of a long holiday weekend.

Dave wastes no time pointing out what boaters are doing wrong.  Just past Spindle Point he spots a jet ski jumping the wake of the Mount Washington as it heads near Three Mile Island.  The Mt. Washington’s the biggest boat on the lake, its wake is an attractive challenge.  “If he does it one more time, I’ll stop him,” but the jet skier heads off in another direction as the massive boat slips behind the island in the descending dusk.

As we cruise along, Dave provides a rundown on the basics of boating safety, from life preservers to proof of boating education, a horn that toots, lots of life preservers, a fire extinguisher, three working lights (red, green and white), and a blue registration sticker, among others.  He shows me pages of rules and regulations, from lists of no wake zones to hull numbers, rafting rules, rope types, PFD variations and even what a Wisconsin driver’s license looks like.

During our first stop, a young captain can’t find his boating education certification.  Dave pulls out his binder, showing him what’s acceptable, explaining, “You have to make sure the people delivering the course are licensed by the state.”  The captain seems crestfallen at the apparent realization that the weekend class he took in the basement of Burger King in Tilton wasn’t legit.  Dave hands him a gold slip of paper with instructions on how to prove, within two days, that the Fryolater Technician/Boating King license he earned last year will pass muster.

We zoom past Governor’s Island and its stately manors, the island’s residents waving to us from lofty gilded perches, their ascots blowing in the breeze.  “Huzzah to you, loyal civil servants!  Huzzah to you!”  Just then a call comes in from Dispatch about water skiers and a man in a hang glider in Moultonborough “harassing loons.”  Dave takes a deep breath as we make our way to investigate.  “We need to get to Alton before the fireworks start,” he say concerned, “And it’s a long ride.”  Dave opens up the throttle, and we race across the lake’s slate blue surface.  Of all the things Dave wants to be doing right now, I think mediating a man-on-loon altercation is not high on his list, but duty calls. 

 

We arrive in Hermit’s Cove, and Dave interviews the neighbors.  They point us towards a house with three boats and a hang glider tucked on the shore.  We approach as two men, drinks in hand, engage Dave, the smells of barbecuing chicken and smug second home ownership in the air. “I’ve been here for twenty five years – I know enough to stay away from the loons,” the obvious culprit says, his smile a mix of endangered bird resentment and hang gliding exhaustion as we pull away and make haste for Alton.

We enter Alton Bay at dusk, more than 200 boats already anchored for the fireworks.  With their lights on, the boats fill the bay like swirling green, red and white Christmas lights.  “This is going to be nuts once the fireworks end – everyone tries to race out of here.  Do you get seasick?” Dave asks.  After friendly reminders to every other boat we encounter, (“Turn your lights on.  Slow it down.  You’re too close.  Those underwater blue lights are illegal . . .”), fireworks explode overhead, blooming circles of color casting shadows on the lake’s dark surface.  Dave takes no joy in our nation’s birthday celebration.  “That guy needs a higher light in the stern, and that one’s going way too fast!” he says.  Every boater, Dave intimates, is doing something wrong.  “If I stopped every single one of the boats I worried about in this harbor, we’d miss something more serious somewhere else.” 

We hustle to Weirs Bay, where hundreds of boats wait for the midnight fireworks.  We loop around to the east, and Dave spots a boat with no lights.  Two men are sitting in the boat, and after much discussion about a missing light and a broken horn, Dave asks the captain to come aboard, the empty beer bottles, the half-filled bottle of wine, and the odor of booze clear signs to investigate.  The guy’s just under the legal limit, and with a busted light, no horn and a belly full of beer, Mr. .07 BAC can’t drive home.  We hook up a tow line and take them into Weirs Beach.  As Dave untethers them, he admonished the captain, “This is your lucky night.  Get your boat fixed and never do this again.”

Does anyone, except Dave, have a remote clue about the rules of the lake?  Expired registrations, missing licenses, busted horns, no life preservers, hang-gliding aristocrats dive-bombing defenseless waterfowl!  This is the Lake of No Rules, except that there are rules and Dave’s the only one out here enforcing them.

Once the sun goes down, it’s impossible to discern land from water.  “To work nights, you have to pass a test with no navigation aids.  I need to know where every light is, where every buoy sits and every island.” Over the course of the night, Dave points out the exact location of each light we pass – even in the pitch black, he knows right where they are.  “Light 36 is off to our right – at 2 o’clock – wait for the two flashing lights.  And in about twenty seconds, to our left, Light 27 will blink once, just off that point . . .  there,” and a white light flashes to my left, on cue.  There are eighty four lights, and Dave’s got them memorized.

Just before quitting time, Dave approaches a speed boat.  The captain’s from Medford, Massachusetts, and he’s a mess.  No license, no boater certification, PFDs stowed away out of reach and list of other things Dave can only shake his head at.  “I swear I have all this stuff at home – you can follow us.” the Medford Mensa offers, but Dave declines, handing him a summons and a boating safety pamphlet instead.  “This is your Happy Fourth of July Get Out of Jail Free night.  I just saved you $400,” adding, “Now get home and be smarter next time.” The Mensa smiles a big vacant “Thank You!” as we separate.

“And you thought we chased loons,” Dave says as we speed towards Gilford.  It’s close to 2 AM, and Dave’s given out six tickets, more than thirty warnings and enough safety tips for every boat owner in New England. I suspect it’ll take all summer to get to everyone, but he’s up to the challenge.