I must confess these are numbers that meant nothing to me until my husband recounted how he could communicate a single number to a fellow teacher and this other teacher will know exactly what my husband is referring to. So if he says: “42.” the other teacher will fire back: “Jackie Robinson’s uniform number.” (The player who broke through the color barrier to become the first African American to play professional baseball.)
Evidently I’m in the minority not knowing the meaning behind these numbers, because they both warranted enough interest to have movies made about them. “61*” follows the race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as both were hitting so well in 1961 that either one of them could have broken Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a single season. Sounds like enough emotion and competition to be fodder for any compelling story—except it really happened. Roger Maris was the one to go down in history with that number, hitting 61 home runs that year.
What is it about baseball that brings new meaning to statistics? It’s probably one of the happier ways to use numbers, something I never would have dreamed possible while sitting in any kind of math class.
Numbers can be fascinating when associated with intriguing coincidences. Did you notice the year, ’61, was the year the home run record was broken with the same number of home runs? Still, there aren’t many numbers that mean very much to me. Perhaps 3 for the trinity, and for the number of days before Jesus rose from the dead. Sixty-five is another number with meaning for me. I chose to use that number in my email address, since it’s the number of CCG repeats I inherited that makes me a carrier for Fragile X Syndrome. Sixty-five is a relatively low number for a carrier, but it’s nonetheless unstable because that repeat number jumped to something uncountable in my son. So it’s an important number, a number that represents a change in my life, but unlike fun baseball statistics, it’s not a happy number.
Numbers are far more fascinating to people like my husband, whose idea of a refreshing mental exercise is to work on a Physics problem that demands several sheets of paper. Can you imagine? I do understand the idea of numbers being reliable and concrete. There is something to be said for absolutes, and math is a prime example for that. Your math problems are absolutely right . . . or wrong . . . and there’s comfort in knowing you can be absolutely right!
Deep down, if I had a choice, perhaps I might prefer being a mathematician rather than a writer. Wait a minute . . . let me think about that. The security of numbers versus the exploration of endless story worlds. Hmmm . . . On second thought . . .
On a completely different note (or should I say number) I also wanted to mention that next week (May 17th through May 19th) I’ll be involved in another very fun Scavenger Hunt! You may recall that I participated in one last year with Bees In The Butterfly Garden, and it was so successful I’m happy to take part in one with All In Good Time. So look for details starting Friday, May 17th, on how you can enter to win some great prizes, including 31 wonderful new books from various Christian writers and an iPad Mini! I’ll post another reminder next week, but mark your calendars so you won’t miss it!
Join Me!