Oregon Strawberries Might be a Mathematical Wonder

Go figure!

I remember struggling with theorems in ninth grade math.

Was I resisting the mathematical concepts, or was I just a distracted 13 year old in the 1966 social chaos?  I had little understanding of myself, my preferences or my competencies at that age. Life was filled with big resistance.

Some form of inspiration arose in the second semester. I assembled my wits, buckled down and turned in dozens of pages of back homework. Mr. Miller's educated eyes softened atop a sly smile. "I knew you could do it."

Have you noticed how understanding shepherds revelation, even accomplishment? The following fall, theorems of corresponding angles, triangle congruence, circles and parallelograms fell into place. Visual evidence accompanied abstract theory. Pythagoras was my friend.

A key insight was that I process information visually and, in fact, it cements images almost photographically. I loved g…