I started this blog on November 15, 2022. By my calculations, that means that this is my 600th consecutive post. Of course, you should feel free to correct me, because even though I got all A’s in math in middle school and high school, I always felt those grades were undeserved, and my calculations (or my phone’s calculations, to be perfectly truthful) may be off. And when I got to college, I decided that I would not take any math classes, which I didn’t.

How that affected me, I don’t know. My senior year of high school class was trigonometry. That means a number of things. First, it means that, although I got an A in trigonometry, today I can’t tell you what trigonometry was about. I remember the words sine and cosine and tangent and cotangent, but that’s all I remember. And I remember those words because they are words – and you don’t have to know trigonometry to be able to remember four words. It also means that I never took any calculus. I think most college graduates my age (at least most of those who I know) did take some calculus (or maybe at least pre-calculus). Do they remember anything? Has it helped them in their lives? Do they know something I don’t know?

And, if I wanted to be a scientist, or a computer programmer, or any of those things, would I have to know calculus? What is calculus anyway? Does anyone really know? Or is it like string theory or economics or the language spoken in ancient times on Easster Island (before it was ever called Easter Island)? I have no idea.

Oh, you say, “Arthur, you are just being your usual modest self. You were probably a mathematical genius.” Well, you must not know about my sold geometry class in 10th, or maybe 11th, grade. I understood nothing. Absolutely nothing. On each of my quizzes, I got C’s or maybe C+’s. This was very unusual for me in high school, so I was concerned. I went to see my teacher and told him my plight and that I thought I needed some extra help. His response was a simple “Don’t worry about it.” That of course did not satisfy me at all, but what could I do? I took the final exam. I knew I did poorly, just like I had on the quizzes. I don’t remember my grade on the final, if I ever knew it, but my grade for the class was an “A”. I saw my teacher in the hall and he said, “See, I told you not to worry.” (That last sentence is fake history.)

Okay, that’s it for “600!!” What about “And We’re Off”?

“We’re off” means that we are getting in our car this morning and heading northeast. We will make a 9 a.m. stop at the post office to mail a couple of books (one to Glasgow and one to New Delhi), and then head up Connecticut Avenue, and across the Beltway to I-270. Our first stop tomorrow will be Oneonta NY, and then we head to visit with friends in Kennebunkport ME, then down to New Bedford MA (actually South Dartmouth, but no knows where that is), the to White Plains NY, then the city of which White Plains is more or less a suburb, then maybe a stop or two in New Jersey and home. Unless we get totally diverted, we’ll be home in about 10 days.

But meantime, blog posts 601-610 will be posted and you can follow our adventures (I use that term advisedly) on the road. And what do you think? What will happen over the next ten days? Will we all be rooting for Kamala Harris to be our next President? Things might move more quickly than you think.