TELEGRAMS

I'm teaching a lesson about communication today, so it got me thinking.

Used to be that telegrams meant only one thing:
A death.

That was the method of notification - at the time, it was fast, efficient and reliable.

I honestly don't know how death notifications are done now - phone call? An officer of the law showing up at your doorstep? Do they just send you an email, and hope that you are on the Internet?

I know with the military, it's always done personally, and I LOVE the logic of the 'how' (care of the all-knowing, all-powerful wikipedia):

For military notifications, there are usually three persons involved: the notifying officer, a medic (in case the family member faints), and an officer that stays in the car in case the family members react violently.

So why does the officer stay in the car; so he doesn't get hurt? So he can drive quickly away and abandon the other two? So he can simply witness the murder of the notifying officer and the medic?

Geesch.

Sorry - perhaps a bit of a morbid attitude, but it makes me giggle (note: take a look at the name of this blog).

WHEN THREE IS NOT MORE THAN TWO

I sort of miss math.

That's another portion of my brain that powered down when I fractured my skull a few decades ago.

I miss my hearing more, but math was something that just 'came' before. It wasn't just memorizing multiplication tables and plugging numbers in, but there was a current there, a stream that mixed up the figures out and brought out the answers.

One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", and I would quote verbatim the section about how Francie assigns numbers human characteristics... unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the book here, and can't find enough on-line to quote it.

But I can relate to it - and if you haven't read the book before, you now have no excuse, so read it, and this is in Chapter 22.

Okay, so what were we talking about?

Oh, right, math.

So although any of my natural math-talents are gone like a freight train, I don't have a problem doing math - it just isn't as much fun anymore.

And especially there is no joy in trying to explain to certain individuals how certain basic mathematical principles work - like if you don't spend money, then it is there when you need it in an emergency - it If you pay things on time, you do not get charged late fees or get anything nasty on your credit report.

There is such a thing as assigning priorities even outside of math - and I cannot seem to communicate that.