First lesson of the 60th grade

It’s probably not the best sign that I forgot until today that I started the 60th grade on Monday. With the first day of every school year, which for me was Monday, you go into the next grade. I will learn things in the 60th grade that I don’t know now. I learned things in the 59th that I didn’t know in the 58th. Some are fun, some are hard. So it goes. I hope school never ends.

To find out what grade you are in, go back to the year you started your senior year in high school, which was grade 12. For me, that was 1960. Then you just count up. Some people can do this mathematically. I actually have to do it on a sheet of paper, writing down all the years from ’60 to ’08, then next to each the corresponding grade: 12, 13, 14, etc. It now takes me one whole column and all but nine lines in the second column of an 8x11 Office Max yellow lined pad. I have learned a lot. Not much math, though. I spent grades 8 through 41 trying to figure out why I had to take algebra. Then one night when Jessie was in eighth grade I was helping her with algebra homework and was so proud when she clenched her eyes and said, “I. Can’t. Do. This.” “Just solve for x,” I said helpfully, and realized in a blinding flash of relief, “That’s it!” After eight grades of memorizing stuff, suddenly kids get to solve for x. Solve for an unknown. Algebra never was about math. Algebra is the kindergarten of philosophy.

Many other things take a long time to learn, too. Even after the Olympics, I can’t tell you what day it is today in Beijing. During the Olympics I never did figure out, no matter how many times Bob Costas told me, if I was a day ahead or behind. I would be reading about events in the newspaper before I saw them on television. Isn’t that totally backwards?

The first new lesson for me in 60th grade came this week when I figured out the only correct answer to the question, “Can you tell me what was going through your mind?” As you know, that was the Official Question of the 2008 Olympics. No matter how impossible their feats, the athletes were easily ensnared on their way to the locker room by a TV reporter wielding this question. The only correct answer: “I was thinking about the folks at home wondering what was going through my mind.” Not a single one was able to give the correct answer, not even Michael Phelps, who was asked eight times. Of course he is like only in the 17th or 18th grade. He is so great, but with so much to learn.