Of Mrs. Adams, Danny Rudinoff, Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy and 17 year old Kipp Matalucci
The death of Mrs. Barbara Adams, who taught mathematics at Penns Grove Regional High School for 39 years, prompts my latest note. Several of us from the Classes of 1969 and 1970 are remembering Mrs. Adams on Facebook, and, with some further elaboration, this note comes from my contribution to the discussion.
I have many memories of Mrs. Adams, and not all of them are good. It is not because I thought Mrs. Adams was a bad teacher. She was a good teacher. It is because of my troubled relationship with math throughout my high school career. The trouble began in seventh grade when our class became guinea pigs for something then called "the new math." I guess the idea behind it was to teach not only that 2+2=4, but, more importantly, why 2+2=4.
I think that my seventh grade math teacher, Mr. Cheesmen, did his best, but I never really got it! It is indeed possible that Mr. Cheesmen had a thorough grounding in the theory of the new math and knew exactly what he was doing. It is also possible that he had attended a week long summer workshop on it and then was expected to come back to school and teach it to a bunch of seventh graders. I will never know. I accept responsibility for the fact that all the talk of "sets" and "subsets" bored me to tears, that I had neither the inclination nor the discipline necessary to spend the extra time needed to learn it, that I got no better at it in eighth grade, and that I entered Algebra I in ninth grade with a very shaky foundation. I could add, subtract, multiply and divide with the best of them, even with fractions and percentages, but that was it.
In September of 1965, I began my study of Algebra I with Mrs. Adams! Let's just say that it did not come easily to me like everything else. I got a C+ in the course for the first marking period of my freshman year. That C+ kept me off the Honor Roll. The fact that I still remember it says a lot about how much it upset me at the time. I remember that Mrs. Adams made it clear to me that I missed a B- by one point. She even did the average a second time in front of the class to make sure it was right. I don't think her motive was malice, but it angered and hurt me even more to know that I was within one point of making the Honor Roll in the first marking period of my first year in high school.
I had Mrs. Adams again for Algebra II. Mrs. Adams was a teacher with compassion. One day my mother was hospitalized. I forget why, but it was not serious enough for me to miss school. Nonetheless, Mrs. Adams came over to me and whispered in my ear that I didn't have to take the test on my desk, if I didn't want to. I took it anyway, and I am sure that I failed it.
My most emotionally charged memory of Mrs. Adams also involves my good friend, Danny Rudinoff, now deceased. I took my Algebra II exam in the early afternoon of the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot. I had stayed up late the night before to watch the California returns. I supported McCarthy during the 1968 presidential campaign, because I thought Kennedy was cowardly for waiting on the sidelines until McCarthy proved in New Hampshire, with his narrow loss to Johnson, that perhaps a sitting President of ones own party could indeed be defeated for the nomination. I might be wrong, but I think Kennedy even waited until McCarthy actually beat Johnson in Indiana before jumping into the fray. When it became clear that Kennedy was going to win in California, thus ending any chance McCarthy had of getting the nomination, I went to bed totally disgusted and with plans to wake up early the next morning to study for about three hours until I had to leave for the exam.
Danny had taken Algebra II the year before, and it contained a 25 point essay question on the quadratic equation. Danny lent me his essay from the year before, and I memorized it word for word.
My mother woke me up the next morning crying, "They've shot another Kennedy!" I ran downstairs and was glued to the TV for three hours until I had to hop on my bike and ride as fast as I could to school.
With the help of Danny's essay, I got a 30 on the exam! By some miracle, I managed to eek out another five points on the damn thing! With the curve, that was a D-!! Had Bobby Kennedy not been assassinated that year, I am all but certain that he would have beaten Richard Nixon. Even with the incredible baggage that Hubert Humphrey was carrying- Vietnam and the horror that was the Chicago Convention- he almost beat Richard Nixon. Many political observers believe that had the election been held just a few days later, Humphrey would have won. He was picking up that much strength in the last couple weeks of the campaign. I think Kennedy would have defeated first Humphrey, with some effort because of the smoke filled room system of the time, and then Nixon, with ease. Be that as it may, had Bobby Kennedy not been shot that evening, I might have actually studied for three hours that morning and maybe even gotten a 50 on the exam, which would have been a C!!! Thus did a momentous event in our nation's history intersect with a somewhat less than momentous event in 17 year old Kipp Matalucci's life.
To this day, whenever I remember Mrs. Adams, I also remember Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy, Danny Rudinoff, my Algebra II exam, and I think about what our country might have been spared, had Kennedy not be murdered the night before that exam. Fortunately, I never think about the man, whose name I won't mention here, who assassinated Bobby Kennedy.
May you rest in peace, Mrs. Adams! I wonder if you've already met up with Danny and he's told you this story? I cannot say that I am looking forward to it any time soon, but one day the three of us will have a good laugh about it!
Danny seeing in the New Year, 1969
Danny, looking good, while celebrating his 50th birthday.
Danny and I before going to Cuba Libra with Dave Traini for a reunion dinner.
Photo courtesy of Bob Cooper. Mrs. Adams, with her husband, in an old Retrospect photo.
I have many memories of Mrs. Adams, and not all of them are good. It is not because I thought Mrs. Adams was a bad teacher. She was a good teacher. It is because of my troubled relationship with math throughout my high school career. The trouble began in seventh grade when our class became guinea pigs for something then called "the new math." I guess the idea behind it was to teach not only that 2+2=4, but, more importantly, why 2+2=4.
I think that my seventh grade math teacher, Mr. Cheesmen, did his best, but I never really got it! It is indeed possible that Mr. Cheesmen had a thorough grounding in the theory of the new math and knew exactly what he was doing. It is also possible that he had attended a week long summer workshop on it and then was expected to come back to school and teach it to a bunch of seventh graders. I will never know. I accept responsibility for the fact that all the talk of "sets" and "subsets" bored me to tears, that I had neither the inclination nor the discipline necessary to spend the extra time needed to learn it, that I got no better at it in eighth grade, and that I entered Algebra I in ninth grade with a very shaky foundation. I could add, subtract, multiply and divide with the best of them, even with fractions and percentages, but that was it.
In September of 1965, I began my study of Algebra I with Mrs. Adams! Let's just say that it did not come easily to me like everything else. I got a C+ in the course for the first marking period of my freshman year. That C+ kept me off the Honor Roll. The fact that I still remember it says a lot about how much it upset me at the time. I remember that Mrs. Adams made it clear to me that I missed a B- by one point. She even did the average a second time in front of the class to make sure it was right. I don't think her motive was malice, but it angered and hurt me even more to know that I was within one point of making the Honor Roll in the first marking period of my first year in high school.
I had Mrs. Adams again for Algebra II. Mrs. Adams was a teacher with compassion. One day my mother was hospitalized. I forget why, but it was not serious enough for me to miss school. Nonetheless, Mrs. Adams came over to me and whispered in my ear that I didn't have to take the test on my desk, if I didn't want to. I took it anyway, and I am sure that I failed it.
My most emotionally charged memory of Mrs. Adams also involves my good friend, Danny Rudinoff, now deceased. I took my Algebra II exam in the early afternoon of the day that Bobby Kennedy was shot. I had stayed up late the night before to watch the California returns. I supported McCarthy during the 1968 presidential campaign, because I thought Kennedy was cowardly for waiting on the sidelines until McCarthy proved in New Hampshire, with his narrow loss to Johnson, that perhaps a sitting President of ones own party could indeed be defeated for the nomination. I might be wrong, but I think Kennedy even waited until McCarthy actually beat Johnson in Indiana before jumping into the fray. When it became clear that Kennedy was going to win in California, thus ending any chance McCarthy had of getting the nomination, I went to bed totally disgusted and with plans to wake up early the next morning to study for about three hours until I had to leave for the exam.
Danny had taken Algebra II the year before, and it contained a 25 point essay question on the quadratic equation. Danny lent me his essay from the year before, and I memorized it word for word.
My mother woke me up the next morning crying, "They've shot another Kennedy!" I ran downstairs and was glued to the TV for three hours until I had to hop on my bike and ride as fast as I could to school.
With the help of Danny's essay, I got a 30 on the exam! By some miracle, I managed to eek out another five points on the damn thing! With the curve, that was a D-!! Had Bobby Kennedy not been assassinated that year, I am all but certain that he would have beaten Richard Nixon. Even with the incredible baggage that Hubert Humphrey was carrying- Vietnam and the horror that was the Chicago Convention- he almost beat Richard Nixon. Many political observers believe that had the election been held just a few days later, Humphrey would have won. He was picking up that much strength in the last couple weeks of the campaign. I think Kennedy would have defeated first Humphrey, with some effort because of the smoke filled room system of the time, and then Nixon, with ease. Be that as it may, had Bobby Kennedy not been shot that evening, I might have actually studied for three hours that morning and maybe even gotten a 50 on the exam, which would have been a C!!! Thus did a momentous event in our nation's history intersect with a somewhat less than momentous event in 17 year old Kipp Matalucci's life.
To this day, whenever I remember Mrs. Adams, I also remember Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy, Danny Rudinoff, my Algebra II exam, and I think about what our country might have been spared, had Kennedy not be murdered the night before that exam. Fortunately, I never think about the man, whose name I won't mention here, who assassinated Bobby Kennedy.
May you rest in peace, Mrs. Adams! I wonder if you've already met up with Danny and he's told you this story? I cannot say that I am looking forward to it any time soon, but one day the three of us will have a good laugh about it!
Danny seeing in the New Year, 1969Danny, looking good, while celebrating his 50th birthday.Danny and I before going to Cuba Libra with Dave Traini for a reunion dinner.Photo courtesy of Bob Cooper. Mrs. Adams, with her husband, in an old Retrospect photo.
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