As a college student at Oregon State Agricultural College, Dad took all the mathematics classes that he could get.  He loved mathematics.  He was working toward a degree in agricultural engineering.  Following each test, the professors would post the results on the outside of their office doors.  Dad's name was always at the very top of the list.

His interest in math was probably genetic.  His father was always “figuring.”  He would leave scraps of paper covered with figures wherever he sat.  Dad's mother gathered them up, and saved them to be studied in her idle time.  Her hobby was to decipher her husband's thoughts.

She, herself, had been sent away to college by her parents to learn music.  But she wasn't interested in music, so without her father's knowledge, she took up accounting.  She later put her training to good use as she worked for her father as he served as county clerk.  She claimed that she kept him out of prison.

Dad, too, left his figuring all over the house.  Every scrap of paper, newspaper, and  envelope was covered with ciphers.  Mom had little interest in his figures or in math, but she was good at things that Dad couldn't do at all.  She could write, and she could spell.  She could also take dictation and type.  Whenever there was a letter to be written, Dad would dictate to her.  She'd take it down in shorthand, and then produce a perfectly typed, grammatically correct letter.  Her abilities to write and to properly use the English language were probably genetic, also.  Her father was a wonderful writer and story teller.

Dad and his parents all liked numbers.  Apparently both of my brothers did, too, because both of them, and my dad, all graduated from college with degrees in agricultural engineering.  I'm good enough at math, myself, but I don't love it like Dad did.

He may have been a champion mathematician, but he couldn't teach it.  I remember taking my math problems to him while I was still in the lower grades, hoping that he could help me.  I quickly learned that he was no help at all.  I couldn't understand his explanations, and had to puzzle things out for myself.

I went straight to Oregon State University when I graduated from high school, and enrolled in a calculus class.  Having had high school courses in geometry, trigonometry, and two years of algebra I was supposedly ready for calculus.  But I have never been so lost in a class as I was in that one.  I had no idea what the professor was trying to teach us.  On the last day possible to do so without penalty, I dropped the class, and never had the courage to tackle it again.

My brother, Tim, was a student at OSU, also, and my not being ready for calculus upset him so much that he wrote a letter to the school board in Baker complaining about the high school math teacher.  That math teacher shouldn't have been there.  Tim had been taught by him, too, and agreed that he was terrible.

“I had trouble in calculus, too,” Tim said.  “I even had to take Math 101 at OSU.”

Hearing that, I began to feel better.

Mac then said, “I had to take Math 10!”

I was shocked.  These engineers had trouble with math, too?!!  I was feeling better and better.

“In fact,” Mac continued, “in my second year of college the dean of engineering called me in and suggested that I should switch to a different major.  'Do you know how many people become engineers who had to take Math 10?'” he asked.  “He put his thumb and index finger together, and held it up for me to see.  He was making a zero.

“I replied, 'Well, I think that I'll stick it out a little longer.'

“When I was close to graduating I wanted to hurry up and get out of there, but I needed a few more credits.  So that summer I took two classes in Differential Equations.  That was the only term that I ever made the honor roll.  I got an A in one class, and a B in the other.  With just 12 more credits, I could have gotten a degree in Math.”

“I took Differential Equations, too,” Tim said.  “That was the hardest class of all.  I went to the professor and told him that if he wouldn't flunk me that I'd never be back.  He gave me a D.”

“Calculus was worthless,” Tim said.

“I've never used it,” Mac added.  “Dad said that all you needed was the equations, and that it wasn't necessary to have to learn how to come up with them; but he was wishing that he could take the class with me.”

“Mac, “ Tim said, “do you know how to do …”  (here Tim bowed his head, and thought, and mumbled, “four times four is sixteen,” and paused as he searched fruitlessly for the word) …

“Square root?” Ellen asked helpfully.

“Yeah!!  Square root.  Do you know how to figure square roots?”

“I do on my slide rule,” Mac said.

“You're dating yourself now,” I said.  “I can use a slide rule, too, but today you're supposed to just reach into your pocket and get the answer from your device.”

“Well, Dad was the only person I've ever known who could do square roots using a pencil,” Tim said.  “He taught himself.  I can't do it, and I was so impressed that Dad could!”

I, James Kerns, feel so much better about myself having heard this conversation.  I've spent over 50 years thinking that I was somehow deficient and sub-par because I wasn't able to do calculus like my father, brothers, son Nathan, and now grandson Levi.

I'll bet that if I set my mind to it now, that I could comprehend it and pass the class. —Except that I have no desire to even try.

I am vindicated.