On the first day of class he laid out his plan. We would have regular homework assignments that would be discussed in class; he would give …[MORE]]]> It was an “obstacle” course—one that either earned you your diploma or forced you to change majors. It was offered once each year and taught by only one professor. I signed up.

On the first day of class he laid out his plan. We would have regular homework assignments that would be discussed in class; he would give weekly quizzes; there would be a mid-term exam and a final. Then he delivered the bad news: only the grade on the final exam would count. One test, one shot, one grade. Take it or leave it.

A lot of students left it. The second class meeting was only two-thirds the size of the first, but I was still there. I was determined.

The first homework assignment was daunting. The text was difficult and the assigned problems were quite advanced. The second assignment tripled in difficulty. The text became so inscrutable it may as well have been written in Mandarin. I performed dismally on the first quiz. I began to panic.

The class sessions were no help. Whenever the professor attempted to “help” with a homework problem, he would get bogged down in the minutia of the mathematics, backtracking, erasing, drifting hopelessly from thought to thought. Finally, he would just scratch his head and wander on to another problem, leaving the first unresolved and the class in utter confusion. Was he a moron or were we the idiots? Was he an Einstein who just couldn’t communicate? Why was he even allowed to teach this class?

I knew I was smart. My GPA was high. I was making a sincere effort. Why was I having so much difficulty? I consulted two acquaintances in the class, men I knew to be exceedingly intelligent, whose study habits I knew to be excellent. They were both floundering, too. We made a pact. We would form a study group, just the three of us, and we would master this material. We began to meet weekly.

The rest of the semester continued in much the same way. We struggled with the text. We agonized over the homework. The classes left us frustrated and confused. Our quiz scores remained shameful. Class size dwindled noticeably with every session.

The mid-term exam was terrifying: six pages filled with dozens of long, detailed problems. On at least half of them I didn’t even understand the question, much less know how to begin solving the problem. Despair set in. I began to consider a change of majors.

In the study group, we redoubled our efforts. We lengthened our sessions, tackled even more unassigned problems, quizzed each other constantly, created outlines and flash cards. We stayed up late and got up early. We trembled at the thought of the final exam.

The dreaded day arrived. By that time, I was so numb with effort and anxiety that I had finally achieved a kind of Zen state. I was completely calm. I was resigned to a career in fast food service. It was too late to run. I decided that if I had to crash and burn, at least I would do it with a little grace.

The exams were passed out. The first thing I noticed was that the test consisted of a single page. There were only ten questions, and each one was stated briefly. There were no convoluted word problems, no litany of given conditions, no complex equations or confounding issues. None of the questions bore any resemblance to our homework problems, our quizzes or the mid‑term exam.

The first question was fundamental theory. I answered swiftly and moved on. The second question: again, fundamental theory. And so on, through all ten questions. I completed the final in twenty minutes, feeling fairly certain I’d answered each question correctly.

It was at that point I concluded that I’d gone insane. I’d simply cracked and failed to grasp anything about the test. I began to reread the questions. I reworked every problem. I came up with every answer again, answers that matched my first effort on every question. I was done. Slowly I stood up, vaguely aware that I was the first to do so. I dropped my exam paper on the front desk and left the room, not quite certain whether I’d just made 100% or a zero. At that point, I didn’t even really care. It was over, and that’s all that mattered.

Well I aced that exam and graduated. And I did so in spite of having such a poor teacher.

But was he really so bad?

His hands-off style forced me to work much harder than I would otherwise have worked. He put me in a position of relying only on my own intelligence, persistence and whatever support system I could create for myself. He provided no assistance at all, but in doing so he motivated me so thoroughly that I completely mastered a most difficult subject. Could that have been his plan all along? To this day, I’m not sure. But in the end, what I learned from him has been much more useful than any classroom subject.

He may not have been my best teacher, but he was certainly one of the most effective.

At the age of five, I discovered pride of ownership in a new pair of red Keds. I can still see them in my mind.

Our house was being reroofed at the time, and men were up on the housetop pulling up the old shingles and tossing them down into the yard for later cleanup. As …[MORE]]]> Red Keds.

At the age of five, I discovered pride of ownership in a new pair of red Keds. I can still see them in my mind.

Our house was being reroofed at the time, and men were up on the housetop pulling up the old shingles and tossing them down into the yard for later cleanup. As I prepared to go outside and play in my new red Keds, mother called out, “Be careful. There are lots of nails lying around, and nails will go through tennie‑shoes.”

That stopped me cold. Nails? Go through tennie-shoes? That just didn’t sound right to me.

My curiosity got the better of me. I went outside and found a short roofing nail. I tried to step on it—just to test the hypothesis, mind you—but the nail collapsed under my shoe. It was clear my experiment needed refinement.

I went out to my dad’s garage and rooted around a bit. Soon I found the perfect apparatus: an 18-inch length of 2×4 with a large nail driven all the way through one side and protruding out the other. This is just what I needed. I put the board down on the concrete floor and gingerly placed my new red Keds on the nail. Nothing happened. I tried stepping up, so I was putting all my weight on the nail, but lost my balance. My protocol was still faulty.

I carried the board to our front porch, which was edged with wrought iron railing. I set the board down, put both hands on the railing for balance, placed my right foot squarely on the nail and put all my weight on that foot. Nothing happened. I was balanced on the point of a nail. I concluded that my mother didn’t know anything about the characteristics of nails or the power of red Keds.

Before declaring the experiment a success, though, I decided to make doubly sure of my results. Still holding onto the railing, I began to twist and turn my whole body, daring the nail the pierce my clearly awesome tennie-shoes. It took several twists and turns, but suddenly the nail did pierce the shoe and immediately sunk itself deep into my instep.

I howled in pain.

My mother rushed onto the porch in response to my wailing, then stopped short. She stared at me dumbfounded. It seemed she found it hard to believe that she had given birth to such a child. She did find it in her heart to comfort me, but she kept questioning me in disbelief.

“And you did this on purpose? And what was the point? Are you mad, child?” And so on.

I could never quite get her to comprehend the importance of scientific investigation and the value of discovering the nature of physical laws through direct observation.

She wouldn’t buy me another pair of red Keds either.

I stood at the end of the high diving board, frozen with fear. From there, the water seemed twice as far away as it looked from poolside. I had to jump. Losing face was too high a price to pay, so turning back was out of the question.

I was in Phoenix, spending …[MORE]]]> I was twelve. Twelve and fat.

I stood at the end of the high diving board, frozen with fear. From there, the water seemed twice as far away as it looked from poolside. I had to jump. Losing face was too high a price to pay, so turning back was out of the question.

I was in Phoenix, spending the summer with my favorite cousin. She was always friendly to me, but she was blonde, thin, tan and—worst of all—popular. Soon after I arrived, her A-list friends had a party and she took me along. They knew the score and wasted no time in cutting me from the herd. They teased me about my weight, mocked my slow Texas drawl, giggled whenever I said “y’all” or “yonder”. While my cousin was good enough not to join in the hazing, she didn’t defend me either. I understood. This was her territory and jungle law prevailed.

A few days later, the whole crowd was at the neighborhood pool. Already miserable in my ill-fitting swimsuit, I cringed as the teasing began again. Soon enough, someone asked about my diving experience.

I swam well enough, but diving was beyond my ability. My chunky little body seemed incapable of that high bounce, that graceful, upended arch. The few attempts I’d made ended in sputtering and floundering.

When the jeering crowd heard that I’d never been off the high dive, they began hooting and goading me, daring me to jump. I couldn’t say no. It didn’t look all that  high.

I made the long, slow climb up the ladder.

I stood at the end of the board, contemplating the fall.

I stepped off.

I plummeted.

The drop took half a second longer than it should have. I had a moment to regret my act. Then I hit the water. How could water be so hard? Hitting the surface felt like landing on solid ground. The backs of my thighs reddened from the spanking, and no amount of breathing out at the moment of impact could counter the water forced up my nose by my own momentum.

I surfaced, sputtering and floundering. I think the mean kids were laughing, but I’m not really sure. My ears buzzed with self-consciousness, and just to prove I wasn’t chicken, I climbed straight out of the pool and went right back up the ladder.

The second leap was no easier than the first, and no more graceful. Two jumps were enough to prove whatever it was I sought to prove. There would never be a third time.

A foolish response to the mocking of kids I didn’t know and would never see again.

But I was twelve. Twelve and fat, friendless and far from home.