A Late Bloomer

When I was a toddler in the 1950s, I well recall seeing my father's slide rule about the house. Even then, it seemed a thing of great magic and mystery. I'm not going to claim I still remember all the details, but pondering this the other night, I'm fairly convinced it was of Post manufacture, for I think I recall a red oval about a name, and that it was made of wood. Pop had degrees in both mechanical and civil engineering, so it was natural he would own such a device.

An Early Aversion

Skip ahead 15 years and you'll find me starting college, a language major who wanted nothing to do with mathematics or engineering. Indeed from grade school, to junior high, to high school and then in undergrad years, I not only loathed mathematics, but could rarely muster a C in the paltry classes I had.

Still, every time I'd visit the college bookstore, the glass case containing slide rules on display always caught my eye. Despite my disdain of mathematics, I still had to greatly admire their meticulous and mysterious construction. Again, all these years later, I remember very little about the sticks on display, but being into languages big time, the manufacturer's name "Dietzgen" stuck with me.

Move ahead a few years, and I'm still studying modern languages with graduation looming. For some two decades, I had grown up thinking I detested and was poor at mathematics. On the other hand, anything linguistic always fascinated me and came easy.

So, what's a fellow to do in such circumstances? Why, change majors of course!

The Great Revolution

I still remember the phone call to my parents: "Hi! What would you think if it took me a little longer to get a degree?"

What a difference a single professor can make! In my supposed final quarter, I decided I really ought to see how the other half lives and enrolled in Calculus I. I was bitten at once and never looked back.

By this time, slide rules had disappeared from the bookstore to be replaced by a shiny new contraption sporting buttons: the pocket calculator. Horribly overpriced, I might add! The very first one I ever saw (around 1972 or thereabouts) was a four-function affair going for more than $100...

However, my passion now was mathematics, not arithmetic, not accounting, not book-keeping. So once more, but for an entirely different reason, I gave the slide rule (and the calculator) scant notice.

Well, there was one weak moment. One night, some forty years ago, while shopping at Madsens (probably with food stamps--thank-you, LBJ!) I stumbled upon a cheap Sterling plastic slide rule and couldn't resist. I bought it for a couple bucks not really knowing what it was good for; it was simply the meticulous layout of the markings which caught my attention. It lay fallow until just last year...

I Find Love Late

Fast-forward once more: after forty years in academia fighting the good battle against college administrators who sided with Augustine more often than Martianus Capella, spontaneously last year my thoughts returned to the slide rule. Who knows why!

Now I simply can't keep my hands off the damn thing, constantly searching for even more beauty in the beast. In short, now I'm all in favor of "computation for the hell of it."

And that's how love of the slide rule finally came to me in my dotage.

Next installment: Some Terminology