Reading, Writing and Math:

Sometimes those of us who live in La Pine like to make fun of ourselves.  Most of the people who do not live in La Pine make fun of us anyway, so we might as well.  

There are jokes about La Pine being the home of the first toothbrush, because people here only had one tooth when they were invented.  Ha, ha, ha.  There is a certain dialect here that we call Lapinese, where words are shortcutted  (that word itself may be a good example). Words meld into their own versions around here, and our grammar here isn't always the best.  All of this was much more noticeable when I moved here in 2001, and I fell right into it.  Since then, La Pine has been "discovered" and different sorts of people have arrived to insert their influence into our little town.  Which is probably a good thing.

I tell you all of that to tell you this:  I suck at math.  Yesterday I wanted to make us some homemade macaroni and cheese.  It actually turned out really good.  But I was having a  bad-math karma day, and had a hard time adding 3/4 cup and 3/4 cup to the cheese sauce mix.  So, I went on Facebook and made a joke about how we did advanced math in La Pine, using the small measuring cup twice.  I was trying to be funny, you guys!  Nobody laughed or even gave me a thumbs up.  Gwen did write me a good thing to help me out for next time:  Three quarters and three quarters equals a dollar fifty.  She is good at math.  I can tell.  I didn't even know that you could do little stories like that for math like you can for the number of days in each month of the year. As in, 30 days hath September, April, June and November, etc.

It started me thinking about my math issues.  I had to take Senior Math in school, that class that math challenged students were required to pass before they could graduate.  This was after you couldn't pass algebra, and they wanted to make sure you could balance your checkbook after you left their school.  That was back in the old days, when they cared.

Anyway, taking Senior Math always made me feel kind of dumb.  But, I found out later that I wasn't really dumb, because I am good at reading and writing.  Two out of three isn't bad.  That is 2/3 smart.  (See I can do a little bit of math.)  So, I went back on Facebook and told a story about my Senior Math teacher.  On the first day, there was this sweet girl, a friend of mine, who was in my class.  Her name was Joni Slonecker.  When the math teacher was calling roll, he butchered Joni's name, calling out "Johnny Slow Necker!".  She slunk down into her seat.  I think it was the slow necker part that really got to her.  I felt her embarrassment.

At the time, I was a little judgmental about that math teacher, wondering how in the world he could not say her name correctly, and thinking he did it on purpose.  But now I think that he was just better at math than at reading.  There are very few of us who are super good at both.  Except those like for my daughter Kristin, who inherited her father's math skills and whatever else she got from me that helped.  Kari, Nigel and I are more word people.

Nobody even gave me a thumbs up on Facebook for that little story, but I thought it was as good one.  So, I am on here trying to explain further justify myself.  Like Paul Harvey and The Rest of the Story.  Cuz this is my diary, and I can. That is the best part of having your own blog.  Besides a place to put all the pictures.

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