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LOL, you have no idea how much that made my head swell to read your post (after I got over the embarrassment of my initial post!)

If you only knew, if you ONLY knew how much difficulty I had with math growing up. I went to summer school for many years, which is about the most depressing and discouraging thing for a kid.

My mother tried so hard to tutor me. They hired some poor Electrician’s Mate (my dad was a Naval officer) to tutor me, and all I could do was put my head on the desk.

I wanted to go to Medical School when I was in High School, but knew I would never be able to go to college at all for any scientific degree because I could not even add or subtract fractions when I graduated from High School. So I joined the Navy.

I got assigned to work with a civilian who was aboard the ship because of a research project they were doing with our squadron’s planes, a wonderful young guy who also was teaching college level math to sailors on the ship. He asked me what I was going to do when I got out of the Navy, and when I said I wanted to go to college but couldn’t do math, he offered to tutor me (because we spent nearly all day together anyway)

He broke the mental block I had (and I was ready to break it) and I passed his course with a “B”, the highest grade I had ever received in any math course up to that point (I had one “C” to my credit, the rest were “D” and mostly “F”!)

I ended up getting a double major degree in Chemistry and Nuclear Medicine, both of which took a lot of advanced math (particularly Physical Chemistry, which nearly killed me!)

I never got to thank that man. Some years later, when the Internet made such things possible, I found his name and address, and sent him a long, heartfelt letter, telling him just how much he had changed my life. I never heard back from him, but always hoped that letter found its way to him. One person can make so much difference in a person’s life, and he made a big difference in mine.

I will forever be grateful to him.