I always like when things pop up that celebrities did when they were young. A lot of Buddy Holly’s homework has popped up over the years. I’ve also seen homework from a few other celebrities, but since Buddy Holly had that geeky look with the thick glasses – and since he was a 50s singer – something seemed more interesting about a piece of school work from him.

And since we’ve all seen lots of drawings, doodles, and paintings from famous folks, there’s something so intriguing about looking back at their school work. Of course, for the autograph collector, that means you want to see their name in the upper right hand corner; even if it’s a printed version of their name in pencil.

It as always said that Abraham Lincoln didn’t have a lot of schooling. It was speculated that he went between three months and nine. With these latest pieces of homework that just popped up, speculation is that he had a few more years than people realized.

There are two pages of math. Two math professors at Illinois State University say that Lincoln must’ve been a pretty good student.

These pages came from a previously known math notebook from the 16^th President’s childhood. It is in the archives of Houghton Library at Harvard University. It’s been there since the mid-50s.

It’s considered the oldest known manuscript by Honest Abe, and he wrote math problems out, along with the answers. Some of them are dated 1824, when he was 17-years-old.

The math professors say very little of it is wrong, and that he knew what he was doing. Here’s an example of one of the problems:

If you’re a bus driver, and you pick up five people at your first stop…

I kid, I kid. Here’s one of the real problems from his notebook: If 100 dollars in one year gain 3 ½ dollars interest, what sum will gain $38.50 cents in one year and a quarter?”

It’s known that Lincoln studied trigonometry and geometry on his own, because…well, don’t we all want to learn more about math in our spare time?

As interesting as that is, I’d still rather have the poem that’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, written by Jim Morrison as a kid. It’s called Pony Express.

I’m guess there are collectors of presidential autographs that probably think I’m nuts for saying that.