It was decades ago that I left normal high school life and for a few periods each week, sat, broadly exposed, in a nearly empty classroom with three other students, trying to unravel the mysteries of advanced mathematics.

Our teacher was a kind vagabond who chased a circuit around APS high schools.

Mr. Mayhew would meet us in our special location to try and instill in us the wonders of Calculus, and then Calculus II, and then Calculus III, shepherding us “advanced students” at Eldorado for two years.

He reminded me a little of a less organized Mr. Rogers, often wearing a drab cardigan over the day’s outfit, and he was a little disheveled and smelled of cigarettes. He spoke softly, but he taught math, and he worked hard to teach us math- well, at least two of us.

Somewhere in middle school I was ID’ed as a “math kid”, and ended up on a fast track to glory- or at least to math preeminince- which, in time, really just put me in an awkward place.

I was always “ahead” in math in high school, and my ascendance landed me in the special class my last two years at Eldorado.

And I was in these class with three other classmates: Heidi, Larry, and Kevin.

But once in the first calculus class, I was quickly treading water. For all of my math excellence, I struggled with calculus. And the struggles didn’t disappear, despite how much I studied.

Still, somehow, I passed calculus my junior year and ended up in the advanced calculus class my senior year, and…

And, well- I cried a few times from that class.

Because there was a clear line between the students that got it, and the other two of us who didn’t. Kevin and Larry were intuitively agile in math and they assimilated each week’s lesson pretty easily.

Heidi and I were, well, not quite Kevin or Larry.

And I was the laggard.

During my senior year, I never fully finished any exam, and after I turned in each one, it was a painful wait, anticipating what would most likely be on that test as a grade.

Heidi and I studied together often, and despite our efforts, we eventually shed a few tears several times as well, either frustrated in trying to learn the math, or about eking out another passing grade.

Halfway through my senior year, I wasn’t even sure why I was in that program. I was clearly remedial.

But Mr. Mayhew, traveling teacher of matrices and differentials, was gentle with us, Heidi and I. He was patient to try and show us where we made mistakes in our math, and what we should have done.

He was always available if we had questions.

And despite my certainly poor exam results, for whatever reasons, he never failed me.

He was gracious.

—

Mr. Mayhew had crossed my mind a few times over the years, always with the question of “I wonder what he is doing now?”

A random visit to an acquaintance’s Facebook page today gave him my attention for a few minutes.

This other person evidently had also been one of “his kids” while attending Sandia back in the day, and she had posted a few comments about how she had learned a lot from him and how he had impacted her, because he had passed away a little over a week ago at age 76.

He spent a lifetime teaching.

—

His classes are special memories to me from my days at Eldorado- in part, because of the bonds I forged with Heidi, Kevin, and Larry while in them- for better and for worse.

I didn’t think I should have been in his classes- but he never said I shouldn’t have been.

He was a good teacher. He was available, affable, encouraging, supportive.

And he tolerated my periodic tears of frustration and failure.

Thanks for challenging and shaping a lot of young minds, Gary, and not leaving the laggards behind. I especially thank you for being like that.

In his classes I perhaps learned, above any math competencies gained, the importance of “keep trying” and “don’t give up” amidst the frustrations and failures that come with trying to learn hard things.

—

Oddly enough, I started college with aspirations to take a math degree or to complete a math minor, until I got into the headwinds of a Linear Algebra course my second semester.

And I finally realized that a career in math was not in the picture for me.