The Limits at Infinity

by: Joan Hitz

It’s October, so, a tale from school ...

Unless you’re an astrophysicist reading your South Bay's Neighbor News after a long hard day at the rocket ship, the reader should know that despite my “A” in college “Calculus One” (aka “elective” ego/torture trip) my calculus skills are equivalent to yours. No, yours are better.

That “A” was the product of a childhood spent erroneously hyperventilating over academics. (2011 update: I’m cured.) 

How it occurred, I’ll never know. I studied, took the tests, and produced the “A,” but to this day, the subject matter of calculus - vertical asymptotes, parallelepipeds, derivatives of arctrigonometric functions, the “limits at infinity” (had enough yet?) - I recall only as Russian translations of Swahili poems swirling inside black holes while blindfolded and gagged. 

In short: I don’t remember Jack. I also don’t know calculus. That’s why I became a physical therapist-writer-face painter and not a calculus-tician. Or whatever they’re called. 

Oh. Yeah. Astrophysicists.

Anyway, ahem.

In 1981, my second semester of college was devoted to finalizing my divorce from mathematics.

The professor, an asymptote-loving soul named Dr. Z., must’ve expected an encore from this first semester “A” student. He welcomed me to Calculus Two with an expectant smile, then began to speak. In Russian.

“Calc Two,” I discovered, was astrophysicist boot camp. Taught in Russian, at eight in the morning, four days a week, in hard plastic chairs.

Still, I hung in. Arose at seven, trudged through Buffalo snowstorms, arrived at eight, sat stiffly, listened politely, Monday through Thursday, to the Russian. Tried really hard.

On the first of only two exams whose average determined the final grade, I got a 48.

Despite my fizzling mathematical prowess (I was, after all, a poetry lover with no joy for numbers), I did realize that, “48,” in Russian or English, was failing.

First stop: Registrar’s Office: Hadn’t I better convert to Pass/Fail, earn 52 on the final, and slink away from Calc Two with a slippery, just passing, 50?  

Yes, the registrar said, I had better. So I did.

Next stop: Breakfast. I spent the second half of second semester cutting calculus. Between the dormitories and the academic buildings, an intersection existed, where, if one wished, one could turn left, take the same number of footsteps it took to reach the calculus classroom, and reach Burger King instead. 

That was my kind of math. The sausage biscuits were wonderful, and this restaurant offered a panoramic view of the Peace Bridge spanning the Niagara River over to Canada. Great place for writing poetry.

Well, once a week, then twice, then more, the lure of biscuits at eight a.m. trumped the limits at infinity. I still sat in a hard plastic chair, but at Burger King. 

The snows swirled, the coffee steamed, I gazed at the Peace Bridge, musing.

Heck, I was “Pass/Fail” now. Just needed a 52 ... in May. I had the brain, the book, I’d cram it all in. Later.

Anyway, if I did fail, I could always emigrate to Canada. They’d take me. I was young, strong, free of ailments. I’d put down as my reason for emigrating: mathematical persecution.

Eventually, though, the snows stopped, the rains came, and suddenly, it was the dark and stormy night ... Before the Final. 

I found the book at seven, opened it at nine, crammed distractedly with a cute brilliant classmate till eleven, then went to bed. When I took the test, I didn’t know my elbow from my ... asymptote. Never was a humiliating “52” so desired. 

And when the tests were returned, there it was. Hovering above a spaghetti tangle of corrective red ink: 52.

Passsssssssssssss!

(This poet, I’m ashamed to admit, was smug. Far and wide, I proclaimed my “ace-ing” of Calc Two with the exact grade required.) 

Not till three decades later (recently), did my daydreaming, mathematically-challenged mind finally catch up with ... what must probably be ... the truth? No way had I deserved that mark. Dr. Z., in an act of infinite benevolence without limits, had given it to me. 

Oh. 

(Humility counts, I hope, even 30 years late.)

I don’t know if Dr. Z. still calculates upon this earthly plane, or, if his spirit now dwells among the limits at infinity. Regardless, I hereby entreat the Universe, Infinity itself, or the Society of Departed Geniuses Who Actually Deserved Passing Grades--Newton, Einstein, Mr. Jobs--to grant their colleague eternal forgiveness for his kindness to the wayward poet in Calc Two. 

It was a singular gift of grace from a math man to a word woman, and here’s the equation for it: 48 + 52 divided by 2 = Love.

When I enter the pearly gates, I’m going bearing gifts. For Dr. Z.: a tray of freshly-baked cookies. 

How many? 

52.

(first published on October 26, 2011, in South Bay's Neighbor News)