My Family, My Science
There is nothing in the world more perfect than a slide rule. Its burnished aluminum feels cool against your lips, and if you hold it level to the light you can see God’s most perfect right angle in each of its corners. When you tip it sideways, it gracefully transfigures into an extravagant rapier that is also retractable with great stealth. Even a very little girl can wield a slide rule, the cursor serving as a haft. My memory cannot separate this play from the earliest stories told to me, and so in my mind I will always picture an agonized Abraham just about to almost sacrifice helpless little Isaac with his raised and terrible slide rule.
I grew up in my father’s laboratory and played beneath the chemical benches until I was tall enough to play on them. My father taught 42 consecutive years’ worth of introductory physics and earth science in that laboratory, nestled within a community college deep in rural Minnesota; he loved his lab, and it was a place that my brothers and I loved also.
The walls were made of cinder blocks slathered in thick cream-colored semigloss paint, but you could feel the texture of the cement underneath if you closed your eyes and concentrated. I remember deciding that the black rubber wainscoting must have been attached with adhesive, because I couldn’t find any nail holes anywhere when I measured its whole length with the yellow surveying tape that extended to a full 30 meters. There were long workbenches where five college boys were to sit side by side, all facing the same direction. These black countertops felt cool as a tombstone and were made of something just as timeless, something that acid couldn’t burn and a hammer couldn’t smash (but don’t try). The benches were strong enough for you to stand on the edge of and couldn’t be scratched even with a rock (but don’t try).
Evenly spaced across the benches were braces of impossibly shiny silver nozzles with handles that took all your strength to turn 90 degrees, and when you did the one that said “gas” did nothing because it wasn’t hooked up, but the one that said “air” blew with such an exhilarating rush that you kind of wanted to put your mouth on it (but don’t try). The whole place was clean and open and empty, but each drawer contained a fascinating array of magnets, wire, glass, and metal that were all useful for something; you just had to figure out what it was. In the cupboard by the door there was pH testing tape, which was like a magic trick only better because instead of just showing a mystery it also solved one: You could see the difference in color and thus pH between a drop of spit and a drop of water or root beer or urine in the bathroom but not blood because you can’t see through it (so don’t try). These were not kids’ toys; they were serious things for grown-ups, but you were a special kid because your dad had that huge ring of keys, so you could play with the equipment anytime you went there with him, because he never, ever said no when you asked him to take