YES, THERE WAS ARITHMETIC IN 1958

One day in 2nd Grade, back when dinosaurs still roamed, Mrs. Callahan threw us into some arithmetic

races. She would call two kids to the front of the room, give each a piece of chalk and call out some

three-digit numbers. “842…184…533” and the two kids would write the numbers in a column on the

blackboard. As soon as the last number was written, the race was on. Whoever could more quickly and

correctly add the numbers was the winner. The loser would go sit in an eight-year’s-old shame, and yes,

that is painful indeed. The winner stayed at the blackboard till defeated.

Early on it became clear that a little girl named Gale (I think) was awfully good at this. She beat

opponent after opponent, most of them quite handily. It seemed that most of her inadequate competitors

were boys. Very quickly the whole ordeal became a fierce boys vs. girls thing, as it so often did in 2nd

Grade. As it too often does throughout life.

And then all the girls were cheering Gale on as if it was the Super Bowl (which didn’t even exist

yet! See how long ago that was?!) The boys mostly just growled and groaned…until they remembered

their not-so-secret weapon, their weapon of math destruction.  Me.

My early years specialties were reading and spelling, but my arithmetic was pretty solid too, and

everybody knew it.

So the boys started calling, “let Rickie do it!”  “Mrs. Callahan, call on Rickie!” Just Rickie Rickie

Rickie all day, all the time. Got to admit--it felt pretty good. 

But Mrs. Callahan was not so easily wooed, and two or three more Rickie-less rounds passed as

Gale continued to vanquish all comers.

Finally, Mrs. Callahan called, “Rickie”, and the boys all cheered. The girls’ chorus went silent.

I stood and--oh, I can’t say that I sauntered to the front of the room. But, yeah, I probably did.

Gale stood at the left side of the blackboard, I stood at the right. We wielded our chalk and waited.

Mrs. Callahan read off the numbers and we hurriedly scrawled them on the board. As soon as the final

number was spoken, the intense, high-speed calculations took off.

I was absolutely flying through the numbers, brain at peak efficiency, fingers moving too fast to be

seen, I was on fire! And Gale beat me without breaking a sweat.

The girls cheered louder than ever, the boys moaned in supreme disappointment. I guarantee that

I did NOT saunter back to my seat. The word “slink” comes to mind.

This was the first of my many life lessons in humility. Thankfully, they never took.