Reading, not math, was family’s common thread

Joni was cleaning out my hall closet last week and came upon a real treasure — the slide rule that her Dad had used for years when he was studying for his land surveyor’s license. When he and Bill Dickenson did private surveys, John always wrote up the descriptions and he had the old slide rule out all  the time.   Then she asked me how it worked. Asking me?  I liked math — but I had my limit and that was geometry. 

She took it back to Dayton with her, convinced she is going to learn how to use it.  She, of course, loved math, taught it at both the middle and high school levels. She was indeed her father’s daughter.

Five kids. One loved math, one loved history, one was good in almost all subjects, another was in school plays, had leading roles in two or three, and speech was more along his line.  They all had one thing in common: They loved to read.

Now I love to read, but as a student, I loved English and literature the most. I loved writing essays, liked it when we were given “special areas” for term papers, etc.  We would have three or four weeks to get them done, and I invariably had mine completed the first week.

But at least it brought the five and me closer.  I was constantly asked to help them diagram sentences, conjugate verbs, check their spelling in a book report ... so I wasn’t entirely left out.

AND SINCE THE ‘famous rapper’ Diddy has taken over the headlines in the news (definitely not in a good way), I am reminded just how much I dislike rap.

YEARS AGO, Utah Keller used to come out and pick up Matt. I could be sitting in the living room and hear him before he even turned off the highway — the music resonated throughout the house — and sure enough, three or four minutes later, there he was.  I knew then that he was hard of hearing — and that was why his music was so loud.  The loud music had not caused hie problem.  But we would laugh when we heard that music five minutes before his car came into the driveway.

AND WHILE I AM remembering five kids and school days, when Son #4 was in elementary school, as I recall it was about second grade, the report cards used to have a place for teacher’s comments. Son #4’s teacher said, in the “good” column: “Takes part in class discussions, usually self-initiated.”  She didn’t have to say anything more. At least it was in the “plus’’ column.