This is Not Just About Mathematics

For those of you who don't know who Ruth Montgomery is, a short introduction is in order. I found her books behind my seat in the library one day when I was already following my morbid fancies. I started reading and realized I was not alone. Ruth was able to communicate with the dead via automatic writing. Do not ask how Ruth Montgomery's books got in to the Ardsley High School Library. The fat budgets of the 1970's and approval plans were probably the reason, or so I think today.

Ruth Montgomery always comforted me. I was not alone in my fascination with the other side and the spirits of the dead. Ruth had lost a contemporary who talked to her via automatic writing. I had lost a contemporary whom I really would not care to speak to and an aunt long before I was born whom I might have really wanted to talk to. I had my own way of communing with the dead though it was not all that satisfactory. It had pleasant side effects if one timed it right though. I owed my 91 on the 1978 Math 11 regents, one of the hardest in thirty years, to having "blown my mind" as I called it the morning before the afternoon exam.

Actually, I had a love-hate relationship with Ruth Montgomery. Her description of the other side was a bit like a bad novel. Spirits could make their own world with thought forms but spending time doing so was worthless activity. They were supposed to strive for something higher or else... Reincarnation was tied tightly to karma and delayed by a pleasant excursion through the other side/Summer Land etc... And woe to those who believed in an orthodox religious view of the After Life or to atheists. Religious disappointment was a nasty thing to encounter and suicides and murders got theirs too. Yes, Ruth had the other side all tied up nicely with a bow and even at sixteen, I found that a little too neat and pat for my tastes.

Still a half hour of reading Ruth Montgomery's latest opus or the latest one the library has acquired on its approval plan feels good. There is nothign like a good dose of mind candy. Sixth period, however, is fast approaching. It's time to go back to class and I have a decision. I really don't want my mom to know about all my morbid fancies. Having a Ruth Montgomery book in the house is no fun if I have to explain about it to parents. I do have to think about things like that. I can...

1. Sign out the latest work by Ruth Montgomery
2. Just go to class.

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