[Blindmath] Dr. Nemeth

[Susan Jolly]

Dr. Nemeth was a kind and generous man who will be greatly missed.  I am one 
of many who were lucky enough to enjoy a number of interesting phone calls 
with him.  I especially appreciated his sense of humor.  If you aren't 
familiar with his story "I Can Feel Blue on Monday" you can read it at the 
following link.

https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/books/kernel1/kernbk19.htm#2

My favorite story of Dr. Nemeth's is the one he told me about a young male 
college student that he and his wife were renting a room to.  This happened 
when Dr. Nemeth was teaching college math shortly after the second World War 
and his college had requested (or perhaps ordered) that all the teachers who 
could possibly do so rent at least one room to a student so as to help 
address the shortage of available rentals. One night the Nemeths' renter 
failed to return as usual but they didn't discover the reason until the 
police called them the next morning.  It turned out that their tenant had 
had a bit too much to drink and had been picked up and jailed overnight. 
However, when the police were planning to release him, they first asked him 
where he lived and he told them he lived with that blind math professor who 
could write math on a blackboard just as well as a sighted person. At that 
point the police figured that even if he were sober, he was crazy and 
weren't sure what to do. Luckily the tenant persuaded the police to call the 
Nemeths who kindly went down to the police station so Dr. Nemeth could 
demonstrate that the tenant was correct.

SusanJ