What my old math teacher said

 

When I was a high school senior, I took like three math classes. I don't know why, I must have been deranged.

The same teacher taught all three classes. He was your typical early '80s high school math teacher. With dark hair and a mustache, he kind of looked like Burt Reynolds, if Reynolds was not quite as dashing, dressed in a way that attracted chalk and mumbled odd sayings that seemed to amuse only himself.

The classes were tough, we all thought they were and, as teenagers do, we made fun of him outside of class. It wasn't a class you could act up in -- he had a bit of a temper -- so we grumbled about our teacher at lunch or in the hallways.

 

I can still see him turning from the chalkboard to face the class, hands outstretched with chalk in one hand and eraser in the other and saying something that summed up what he had just written that we couldn't decipher and then he'd blink several times.

One of his many sayings, really the only I can remember was "quick and dirty". (I had intended to make this the blog post title and then I decided against it. The internet isn't as innocent as we were in 1983). It was my teacher's way of saying "here's a math problem shortcut," which we clung to eagerly but often was no help to us at all.

I still hear him saying it though, and it comes up in my head sometimes, like when I made a trade with Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life!

It was a speedy trade through TCDB, kind of surprising given the card involved, and it was sparked by that one card that I need for the 1970 Topps set.

 

There it is. Willie Mays arrived quick and the card looks a little dirty, right?

It's pretty-well creased, though not in super-offensive way. It works completely with my 1970 set, I mean look at some of the other big names in that set in my collection: Johnny Bench has a big crease in the corner, Hank Aaron's off-center, Pete Rose is worn on all four corners. That's the way it's got to be. I'm not operating on a math teacher's salary.

This transaction helped me avoid spending a decent chunk of cash on this card. I was prepared to do it and I figured I'd do it this month. I just sent in a magazine article to Beckett and the cash from that would have paid for a Mays card, but instead I spent nothing at all except a couple stamps!

So with Mays in my clutches, I'm down to needing two cards to finish 1970. They're both high numbers, Al Kaline and Duffy Dyer. I don't expect either of them to be much of a problem and I should land both before the month is out. Expect a celebration post!

Since the deal with Bo became a TCDB trade, other cards showed up with it.

 

One of the few non-superstars in the lower numbers that I needed for the 1969 Topps set. Mr. Wise is in great shape and I'm glad to finally cross this off.

 

Another lower-number need, it's Mayo Smith and his disappearing hat! Obviously this card is a place-holder as Smith's a bit wrinkled before his time. But if '67 Topps prices go any higher, expect to see more cards like this in my set.

Here's a 1986 Sportflics Bob Welch that I needed. I'm terrible at keeping track of the Sportflics Dodgers, I just wasn't into these at the time and I tend to focus on the later Sportflics sets because they seem more elusive.

And a couple of 2005 Topps wants that probably pale in comparison to the rest of these cards, but sets that are affordable need to be collected, too!

I'm pretty happy to slip Willie Mays into that binder spot and I've already scanned through my set to make sure no gremlins have struck.

As for those math classes, I managed to pass all of them, though one just barely. I also took the math SAT in his class and, wow, I sweated that one out. I had never struggled in class until that final year in multiple math classes. It was a key time for me because I realized during this period that I was much better with words than I was with numbers.

So in that way, my math teacher set me up for my career.

(I see that Bo has his half of the trade up on his blog).