Frenzied Daddy

Miss B is up to her eyeballs in Algebra One. She’s having a hard time getting good teaching from her teacher. Our friend Mr I is also having troubles, in Trig. I have to admit, I’ve always enjoyed math, and enjoy being asked to help them. I hated my senior year math teacher, though, Mr Keupker.

Mr Keupker was mean. I don’t mean that in a whiny sense- he would walk around the eight seniors taking Calculus and say things like “Why are you even in this class. You can’t do this.” It really bugged me that he said this to Michelle (last name redacted for her privacy). I had a crush on her and knew that she was smart- she was taking classes that I was taking, and hey, I was smart.

Let’s be honest, I was a high school boy. I was a walking sac of hormones. I had crushes on half the girls in my classes. But two of my special affections were Michelle and Heidi.

To my delight, Michelle asked me to come over to her house and give her a few calculus tips. She was way out of my league, but I was more than happy to swing at any pitches she offered to throw. I biked over to her house one evening when I didn’t have to work, and we went to the kitchen table to talk about Calc. Her parents were out, and it was just us.

She offered me something to drink; she said “A coke, or maybe a beer.” Maybe she was offering to impress me, or test me or something. But my thought was “hey I drink beer after work. I can show how mature I am” and opted for the beer. She talked me down to a coke, which was ok too – I was just happy to be there. I wanted her to show up Mr Keupker, but she was starting to believe the things he said; “I’m not really smart.” I hate hearing that, especially from someone taking Honors Calc, Honors English and Physics.

I should have gone with the coke in the first place. And made myself memorable by saying “No, no beer for me. We’re here for Calculus, and I never drink and derive.” But I wasn’t quite that subtle in High School.

I love going to my in-laws. I can almost understand why some people don’t like their mothers- or fathers-in-law, but that’s not the case in my home. So when we left for their house this weekend, I was in high spirits.

Traveling over Willamette Pass, however, took its toll. It was dark, and foggy, and raining. And I’ve slowly been getting worse at driving at night; I have a hard time distinguishing the lane lines in the wet darkness (specifically during a rainy night). The fog lines were all blurred out from the winter wear on the roads (cinder ash and gravel) and there were times I found myself in the chain-up area thinking I was in the lane. There were wisps and banks of fog as well as the rain. It was a terrifying hour or so as we wound up from Oakridge to the pass itself, then the roads dried out and I didn’t have nearly as much fear.

Coming back was better- we came home during the day and I could see what was happening. Basically, humidity was very high, and there was a fog rising from the snow (the cold snow was causing a fog to rise and become a lenticular cloud). On top of that, the clouds were full and raining on us. The drive was surreal; we had ‘steam’ rising on both sides and from the road and at the same time we had snow falling on us from these clouds. And we had cloud banks (fog banks) across the road at intervals. It was a much more entertaining drive home than it was up into the hills. We have some neat pictures that I’ll upload (sometime).

I had a great time (as always) in K Falls. The girls had a lot of fun with their Grandma and Grampa and their cousins. And they got to go swimming at the Running Y ranch, too. The weekend was a success, but I hope that the roads get better before we go back down.