In 1957, in the mornings before the carpool picked me up to go to kindergarten, I would ask my mom to tell me a joke, in hopes that I would laugh, and thus stop crying. I hated kindergarten. And I hated for the kids in the carpool to see that I had been crying.

In second grade I couldn’t figure out why it was so dang important that the tops of my lower-case letters touch that little dotted line on our writing homework. Who cares? Teacher, can you read my homework? Oh, I think you can.

In fourth grade we learned fractions. And I got that. Add ’em, subtract ’em – hey, I gotcher lowest common denominator, right here.

My sixth-grade teacher hated me. Well, probably not. But I sure thought so then. I may have been a little chatty in class.

In eighth grade, we had some year-long bullshit supplemental reading program. I guess this was so the teacher had to spend less time teaching. We’d read some prescribed something, take a test, and maybe move along to the next level. And there was some front-of-the-room, motivational progress indicator showing what level everyone had reached. I think the highest level was purple. Reggie and Jeff were there by Christmas break. I don’t think I ever got there. I was, and am, a pretty slow reader. I am very good at it – understand almost everything I read. But I am slow. “Motivational” my ass. All this motivated me to do was cringe until the bell rang so we could go to lunch.

Did I tell you about fourth grade? Oh man, fractions! Multiply ’em. Divide one by the other (easy – just flip-flop one and then multiply). The other kids didn’t seem to pick up on this. But I did.

How in the world could my 10th-grade Spanish teacher so consistently recognize when I did not know the answer? Am I that transparent? “Alfonzo,” (please, is that the closest we can come to “Randolph”?), “como se dice ‘notebook’”? “Senorita Brandt, por favor muerdeme.”

I don’t think I went to many classes in 12th grade.

But wow, back in fourth grade, when we were doin’ fractions . . . . Hey teach, call on me. Ooh ooh. Over here. I dare ya. “Three-eighths.” Hey, ya don’t have to tell me “That’s correct.” I’ll tell you when that’s correct.

As an undergraduate, I was a math major until I started getting Cs in calculus. I guess I did OK in my psychology classes.

As a graduate student, I had a near mortal case of impostor syndrome. Ten years after I received my Ph.D. I heard second-hand that my major professor had thought my dissertation was good.

But man, back in 1961, in fourth grade . . . I fucking owned fractions. That was the last time I fully understood. I look forward to the next time.