Today, March 14, is pi day, not pie, just pi, because March 14, written numerically is 3.14 and mathematical pi is 3.14152265 and on and on so it can be rounded to 3.14. I'm sure you all remember this from your high school algebra classes. No doubt the formula 'pi equals mc squared' springs instantly to mind.
I had an excellent math teacher in high school. Her name was Mrs. Davis and she lived on Euclid Avenue which I thought was really cool. I was a good math student and thought, all through high school, that I would study in college to become either an English or math teacher, until my senior year when I took an art class, shadowed the art teacher for some time as he taught his elementary classes and decided that teaching art would be more fun. Apart from an occasional lump of clay on the ceiling it really was.
The most vivid memory that I have of Mrs. Davis was an incident that happened on the first day of my senior year. My younger brother (not the west coast brother, the other one) was a freshman that year. When I walked into Trigonometry class that afternoon Mrs. Davis said to me, a little shakily I thought, "That Cohrs boy, that Cohrs boy who is a freshman, he isn't related to you, is he?" with a rather hopeful tone in her voice. Evidently he was in freshman algebra, and already not living up to her expectations. Please understand, my brother John was smart, but he was also a world class goof off. He and his best friend got called to the principal's office at least once a week all through that long, long year. My graduation couldn't come fast enough.
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