Does anyone ever say, “I don’t think I’ll go on this hot date tonight because I’d rather stay at home and do math?” John drove from Florida to New York in twenty-four hours stopping twice at a rest stop for a one hour nap. Paul made the same trip in twenty-eight hours stopping once for a two hour nap. Combined, the nap time totaled four hours and the driving time totaled fifty-two hours. If John and Paul had shared the driving, how many inches of snow could Connecticut expect next winter Do people really talk about this stuff? When I was a child, I understood that 2  plus  2 equals 4, but why isn’t 2  And  2 22. One 2 next to another 2 certainly looks like a 22.  I was able to count to ten. I had no problem with twenty and up, but I had a real hard time with everything between ten and twenty. My solution? Eleventy-one, eleventy-two, eleventy-three, all the way to eleventy-nine. I was fine from twenty on. Telling time was another thing altogether. Twelve fi...

  New York in mid-September can be a bit chilly. Particularly in the shade.  The parks are usually quite sunny and some days , one can be comfortable in just a T-shirt. The morning of September 11, 2001 was one of these unusually warm mornings. My fellow sidewalk booksellers and I were out in full force with our best merchandise on the nicest day we've had since graduation. Then we needed a lot of Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary since all that were left were the aging hipsters. We had lengthy discussions about who would come earliest to secure the best spot on the block for himself. These were our concerns: That we can exercise our First Amendment Rights without harassment from some self proclaimed authority figure and that it doesn't rain. The New York University Administration and the NYU Bookstore cannot be counted among the number of supporters the sidewalk booksellers have acquired. We provided excellent books at a price that left the students with some money left over for be...