Geometry and I were not good friends. In fact, the way it put me in "D" land, I felt we were mortal enemies.
Fortunately, I had a teacher, Mr. Bloch, who taught "students" as well as subjects.
One day, after returning a test paper which featured a "onelegged A," he asked me to stay after class.
"You don't care much for math do you," he said, leaning back in his chair while giving me a kindly but challenging gaze over his glasses.
"No, Sir," I replied, "it seems like a foreign language I'll never learn to speak."
"But you do like murder mysteries?" he asked with a sly grin.
You see, Mr. Bloch had taken time to know each one of us personally. During one of our discussions, he had learned that I loved Sherlock Holmes novels.
"How long does it take you to read an entire mystery?" he asked.
"Once I get into it, I seldom put it down until I've finished it. I just can't wait to find out who did it."
"Okay then," he said as he jumped out of his chair. "I don't want you to do any more geometry."
"Wow! I'll buy into that!" I said with a big smile.
"I want you to solve murder mysteries!"
"What?" I asked, totally confused.
"Let me show you what I mean." He took out a blank piece of paper and drew a weirdly shaped triangle. Pointing to it, he said, "There's your mystery. Now I'll give you two clues. One angle is 65 degrees, and the other is 30 degrees. Now the third angle is the murderer. How many degrees does it have?"
One of the few things I had learned was that a triangle had 180 degrees. "85 degrees," I answered.
"Good! You caught him. Now put him in jail."
"Where's jail?" I asked.
"On the paper," he bellowed. "Do no more math problems. Solve mysteries."
Something caused me to catch his vision, and that night, for the first time, I started my geometry homework first. I was shocked to... Continue
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