As a writer, my life has been a love affair with words, but I’ve tried to keep numbers and me a well guarded secret, thankful that good number sense isn’t necessary to write poems, columns or blogs.
Having just survived my 90th birthday in June, I was reminded by my wife that our Anniversary makes its appearance in July. “You remember our wedding date?” She asked. To respond, my poet’s brain began to think frantically, — our oldest daughter was born in 1975, and our youngest in 1980, so how many years were we carefree before family life began? Just as I was going to have to say I didn’t remember, my wife assumed I knew and went on to her next question which was “What day this week or next do we celebrate our Anniversary?”
That was a much easier question, as we only had to decide on a date, and not remember a number!
I can’t remember when my problem with numbers first began, certainly earlier than college days when I had to decide not to major in my favorite subject history because I couldn’t remember dates (which were of course numbers).
And even earlier than high school when I’d have to ask my brother for our telephone number.
It began in the first grade when I could not learn to tell time on a traditional clock. The problem was I would give the clock-face numbers 1, 2, 3, the value of 1: 2, 3, instead of five, ten, fifteen minutes. After that experience, numbers were an uphill battle for me. Starting out on the wrong foot with numbers led to trouble with mathematics.
The good news about numbers and me is that both my parents were excellent in math, and I had excellent math teachers at Dime Box Rural School. I think it’s important for all of us to realize that even though we encounter brick walls on or journey, it doesn’t have to mean a ticket to failure. You have to become friends with numbers in order to enjoy the blessings mathematics can bring you!
Today, I still have problems remembering numbers even though my ability with math is pretty good. I can’t remember my charge number at the grocery store, which is my telephone number. At 90 years old, I still have to ask my wife for my Social Security number, because I simply can’t remember it. My wife is never too happy that I can’t remember her age, so I try to err in the direction of a lower number than a higher one. I used to have trouble remembering our Post Office Box number which is only three digits; fortunately, now, my wife gets our mail.
So what’s in a number anyway? Not enough to lose sleep over.
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired teacher and retired pastor and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.