In the fall of 1970, during my senior year at the University of Michigan, I convinced myself that I would have a better chance being a writer than a mathematician. I dropped out and figured I would work at any job I could get to support myself. The only job I could get was unloading telephone books from a truck into the cars of people who were to deliver them. The job was to last three days—I quit after the first. During that first day, around the time when my arms became like rubber and I could hardly even lift one phone book, I had a flash of insight and decided to return to school and get my degree. Then I would become a writer.
In the summer of 1971, after taking my last math final, I vowed to never set foot in another math classroom in my life, telling myself that if I ever did I would puke. That fall, I told my parents I was moving to San Francisco. I had made it clear I wasn’t going back to school for a masters. “What are your plans?” my father asked.
“I just told you”
“What about a job?” he asked.
“I’ll find work,” was my reply. I explained that my intent was to work at whatever, so I could write at night and make it as a writer. This seemed as plausible and realistic as anything else I could be doing or that anyone else was doing.
“But what are your plans?” he asked.
“Those are my plans,” I said.
At that time it looked like the war in Viet Nam would never end and it seemed that countercultural values would stay forever. The war did end eventually and countercultural values seemed to fall by the wayside when the majority of the counterculture that wasn’t drafted went to grad school. And when they entered the work force, the final death knell was struck.
Over the course of the next thirty plus years, the world was to change many more times, and I along with it. Eventually I made my peace with the mathematics I thought I had left behind. Ironically my start on this journey back came about through a girl I had left behind—a dark haired girl with whom I kept up a correspondence and occasional passionate visit for two years after I had left school. She got accepted to graduate school at Stanford and moved out to the west coast. It took all of about two weeks for us to discover there wasn’t much behind our romance and we broke up—or at least I thought we had. She called me one morning, very sad about the break-up and asked me to please come to a housewarming party she and her housemates were throwing in Palo Alto. She was crying, so I said yes.
The party was rather dull; the handful of people who showed up camped out in private spaces within the party boundaries and avoided talking with one another. In the meantime, I was dedicated to stay broken up with my ex-girlfriend which became evident to her when all the guests had gone and I asked “Where am I going to sleep?”
She seemed taken aback by this while at the same time pretending to take it in stride. She disappeared for five minutes and when she came back, she told me I could sleep in one of her housemates’ room which was the only one that had two beds in it.
I was alone for a few minutes in her housemate’s room relieved at how things had worked out. “That was easier than I expected,” I thought as I stood, clad in my boxer shorts, in front of a large bookcase. I caught sight of the book “Men of Mathematics” by Eric Temple Bell. Bell was a mathematician who had written a number of books for lay people. On the front inside cover was an inscription that started “To my darling granddaughter…” and was signed “Eric Temple Bell”.
At that point, the woman who belonged to the room walked in. She was surprised not only to see someone she only knew for a few hours standing in his underwear, but who asked her with wide-eyed astonishment: “Your grandfather was Eric Temple Bell?”
“Yes,” she said, and dashed out.
I have no idea what happened next but imagine that there were a few words exchanged between Bell’s granddaughter and my ex-girlfriend, and that whatever was said was not very pretty. Given her reaction at seeing me, I surmised that the arrangement hadn’t been explained to her—or at least not very fully. The granddaughter came back in, not looking very happy and told me “You can sleep in that bed,” pointing to the one I was standing next to. “And don’t get any wise ideas.”
The next morning I had breakfast with the rather somber group of housemates. They weren’t a very happy bunch to begin with, I had been told. Bell’s granddaughter wouldn’t look my way. I found out later that on top of everything else, my snoring kept her awake. Being resolute in my blindness of her hatred of me, I asked “So what was your grandfather like?”
She was about to eat a spoonful of corn flakes but instead put her spoon down on the table with a loud thunk. She glared at me and said “He was an absolute jerk. He wouldn’t give my father the time of day his whole life, and he didn’t have time for any of us.”
I imagine that her statement made a lot more sense to me than the others at the table, since her description matched the general population of the University of Michigan Math Department. Not that they were bad people, but math professors at that time generally held undergrads on a spectrum of little regard at one end to non-existent at the other.
As an example, my Advanced Calculus professor was hired directly from Poland and although a brilliant man, spoke so very little English that his lectures were impossible to follow. I complained to the head of the math department who offered an apology in the form of “This man is so brilliant, he’ll have the chair in mathematics in a few years. Unfortunately we were in such a hurry to grab him that we neglected to notice that he didn’t speak English.” How one escapes from noticing this little detail is indeed puzzling, and I wasn’t too pleased with this explanation.
I replied that with his lectures so incomprehensible, I would be better off just reading the book rather than paying tuition and taking a class. His response: “This sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you to learn.” For those of you who know a bit about upper level math courses, the textbook was “Advanced Calculus” by R. Creighton Buck, which doesn’t lend itself to do-it-yourselfers.
I did have a friend, however—a very nice professor who had taught my class in Introduction to Real Analysis. I told him I was having problems, and he said there was a more straightforward advanced calculus course, for engineers rather than math majors. He was of the opinion that “It’s all bologna no matter how you slice it” and told me he’d put in a good word for me to be able to take the engineering-based course in lieu of the one I was in. A few days later he told me that the answer from the math department was “No.” The advanced calculus course I was in was for math majors and if I was to major in math, that was the course I was to take, no ifs, ands or buts.
Over the years since my experience as an unwelcome guest in the granddaughter’s bedroom, I have realized that her harsh words about her grandfather made me aware of an allegiance to the subject that I didn’t know I had. I’ve also realized that she was being loyal to her father who she felt had been slighted and ignored. I too recognized my loyalty to my father, and eventually made my peace with him as well.
I recall a visit with him about a year before he passed away. He was very old and his health was failing along with his memory. We were many years away from the conflicts and arguments that I faced when I left home after finishing college which is why, I suppose, I was amused when he said “So what are you doing these days? What are your plans?”
I told him I was planning to teach math when I retire. “I always thought you’d wind up as a writer,” he said, his mind dwelling on my rebellious days when I turned my back on math and school in general. I explained as well as I could my interest in trying to help young kids with math and how I had over the years rejuvenated my interest in the subject. Always wanting to see his kids as great he said “You mean all these years you were a mathematical genius?”
No, I’m afraid I can’t make that claim. I just like the subject. The amazement I felt at the age of seven when realizing that counting to one hundred twice is the same as counting to two hundred once was no less than when as a sophomore in college I discovered I could prove that a set of mutually non-intersecting discs in a plane is countable. Life with my father and his inconsistencies and eruption of temper was often difficult. With his passing, I forgave him his inconsistencies.
While I was at it, I also forgave the transgressions of the academic world. Although I have not ascended into the world of true mathematicians, the math world has been kind to me. I remain grateful for it providing me with the refuge that was and is so wonderfully and eternally consistent.
About the author
Barry Garelick has fiction published in Heimat, Cafe Lit, Ephemeras and Fiction on the Web. His non-fiction pieces have been published in Atlantic, and Education Next. He lives in Morro Bay, California with his wife.
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