Do Numbers Count?

Non-mathematically inclined folk seem to think that Mathematicians -- and I guess ex-Mathematicians like myself -- sitting around counting numbers -- perhaps, in order to prevent their being replaced by magnetic tape and intelligent computers. Actually, I don't spend a lot of time counting. One of my grandkids on a road trip spoke up from the backseat, apparently after doing some counting, herself: "Twenty years and bye-bye Grandpa." Chances are an optimistic and kind guess. Levinson when he studied "The Seasons of a Man's Life" and Sheehy when she investigated the "Passages" that women make concluded in broadly similar conclusions culled from the same data sets that people do begin counting backwards sometime in their 40's ...  my grand-daughter was doing that for me.

Last night at dinner, two of my kids and 4 of my grandkids were eating up Grandpa's cooking and Grandma's fixings when hurt feelings arose over not-so-much ... most wounds in families wouldn't make the front page of the Jessup Journal and this, at least as far as the surface/content issues went, was not important, in and of itself. Still there was heat. The Psalmist rhetorically queried:

"Can a horn blow in the city and the people not tremble?"

I suppose not. The next generation was pretty oblivious to the differences of their parents bust must've heard or felt the rumblings. M was quiet. My heart began to show that it was ready to lose its rhythm but my head said: Let it Go.

Letting go ... What is that religious expression ... Let Go and let God! ... Was it Patti Page who sang "What will be, will be" .... Was it Moses' God that introduced him/herself as "I will be as I shall be" .... and who hasn't these days said "It is what it is."

I was able to "still my Last Quarter arrhythmic heart" by thinking numbers. My three kids with M are 143 years old ... and with our grandchildren the cumulative spawn-years gives 205. Neither are prime numbers ... 143=11x13 and 205=5x41 and grown children will be as they will be.

I don't know how to explain the mystery of acceptance and a degree of resignation in terms of how things are as we get to 60 and well beyond. Is it having listened to George Harrison sing "This, too, Shall Pass"? Is it just becoming inured to the vagaries of life? I use a theory of thirds when speaking to myself ... in this case ... one third of the time healthy folk are pretty celebratory ... a third of the time in foul moods and a final third they're kinda ok to share space with .... with care. To me, that suggests that one ninth of the time near and dear will be on the same happy-page ... a ninth of the time at each others' throats. But what, I thought last night, happens when "all of us are gathered" in the name of family and there are, say, nine souls. ... This ex-Mathematician don't got a clue.

So, just in case, this Player in the Fourth Quarter took two beta-blockers and continued eating. The Soup was pretty good and the potatoe kugel was made vegan so one of my kids could partake.

Carpe Diem but don't Carp on the occasional Crap

or

Crap on the occasional Carp: 

words to live by? 

who knows? 

WORDS