I remember the shouting, the screaming, the tantrums, the delays. Oh well, we will be late again. Carl, our little four year old, was doing his thing.
“Even all around and equal to each other .”
It would never be right. It could never be right. There was no such thing as right, except in his perception. Ben, my husband, tried. I tried. We both tried, again and again. It was also getting late and then later to get to Ben’s boss’s house for dinner. How could we resolve Carl’s demands when they were not based on any reality, mathematics or even esthetics? He had to have the cuffs on his dungaree’s folded up because they were too long. To avoid the expense of replacing his pants as he grew, they were a length he would grow into. Until that time, they had to be folded up and the cuffs had to be ”even all around and equal to each other.” We never did satisfy this request and in retrospect, we probably got out of the house late by bribery or some other distraction or pacification. All of us the worse for wear and the cuffs as even all around and equal to each other as was humanly possible without the use of a ruler.
Could it be that this difficult little boy was already thinking in mathematical terms which would lead to his MacArthur fellowship and his current work as a high energy physicist looking for top quarks.?
Ethyl H.
October 2020
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