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It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?

I did not pass a single math course until I got a C in some class because I’m sure they didn’t want to flunk me. I had to go to summer school, my mom spent months trying to teach me herself, using flash cards and times tables. What a wonderful woman she was to me.

At one point, I had an ex-nun who tutored me for several years in Yokosuka as a favor to my mom (She and my mom were friends) I used to go over to her apartment all the time, and she came to my house. Did me absolutely no good.

When I lived in Subic Bay as a kid, my parents hired a sailor to tutor me. He was a really nice guy, but I would just put my head on my forearms and stare at the desktop. I feel regret that I was that way with him, but you can’t change the past.

When I joined the Navy, and decided that it was not a career for me, I knew if I wanted to get into any scientific field, I had to learn math. Fortunately for me, I met up with a guy named Jerry Wouters when I was in VA-46 on the USS JFK.

I had been doing very well, advancing in rank and responsibility until on my last cruise, I had made 2nd class and was a flight deck troubleshooter, and they assigned me to work on a special project with this guy.

He worked for Detroit Diesel Allison, and his company had made a bunch of small modifications to the TF-41 engines in our A-7 Corsairs, mostly adding transducers, thermocouples and other sensors all over the engine so they could record parameters such as temperature, vibration, RPM, throttle position and so on. They took the aircraft into an AIMD (Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Depot) and put a wiring harness in them that would take all the transducer measurements and bring them to a box they put in a bay on the plane that held a cassette that could record them. My job was to go to each plane after it landed, check the mechanical flags (this was in 1978) and record and reset them (passing the info on to the maintenance crews for investigation)

I would take this battery out (they were about 3x3x4, and very heavy for their size) and replace them with a new battery. I would stick the battery in a special bandolier they made me, velcro it in, write all the info down in a little book, and continue to the next plane.

Then I would download the contents of the battery to a Digital Equipment PDP11, and using a command line, plot all the parameters for the duration of the flight in order to print them out on a big plotter. I loved it. I learned all about plotting things on a graph and doing in the best way so that all the values could be easily discerned. I worked with this guy, Jerry Wouters from Detroit Diesel Allison for months.

One day he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said I wanted to go to college and work in a scientific, hopefully medical field. He was a young guy, I am guessing 30, and was a completely down to earth guy. I told him I doubted if I could do it, because I had such a mind block with mathematics.

He said “I am teaching a college level algebra course for the sailors on this ship while we are at sea. Why don’t you sign up for the course? I will personally tutor you and help you pass the course?” I was dubious, but I thought maybe it will be different this time, and signed up. I passed with a “B”...and it is hard to fake a grade in math!

I ended up being a Chemistry major (Even passed Physical Chemistry!) and now I have no fear of math.

I only wish I could find Jerry Wouters. It has been a few years since I last tried...maybe I’ll try again...maybe some new tool on the Internet...