During college in the early 70s I drove cab to pay tuition. I was in the taxi more than university. My first class in the morning was math. It was my major. I rarely showed up for Multi-Variable Calculus 101. The professor was Rene Marcus. His daughter was my friend. I rarely showed up in class. At the end of the autumn semester I arrived at the final. Professor Marcus pulled me to the side.
"You haven't been in class more than three times." Rene Marcus was about 45. A genius of telemetry. NASA paid him big money to figure out missile attack on Russia. It was still the Cold War.
"That's right." I had won a high school scholarship thanks to my natural aptitude in math. I had been accepted to college early thanks to my SAT scores in Math.
710.
"How do you think you can pass this test?"
The rest of the class stared at me with pity. Multi-Variable Calculus 101 was not Geology 101 or Rocks for Jocks.
"Give me a test paper and let me put my hand on the textbook."
"And this will help?" Mathematicians only believe in numbers.
"It can't hurt." I placed both hands on the book. My palms read nothing. I took the test. My score was 45. The whorls on my flesh were very sensitive.
"I thought you'd get nothing right." Rene was amazed by my idiot-savantism.
"I still failed."
Yes, but if you drop out from Math, I'll give you a D+"
"It's a deal." A failure would have resulted in my losing a draft exemption. Vietnam was a meat grinder. I was no John Wayne. My new major was economics. I graduated sine laude or without praise. I worked for me for by 1974 the Vietnam War no longer needed my corpse.
That summer I drove cross-country with my good friend AK to celebrate the end of my education.
It was a great trip.
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