Before I forget...

Hi neighbors. Didn't I tell you we would have nice weather again sooner or later? Let's hope there's more where this came from.

One of my favorite things to collect is trivia. Few people know more about less than I do. When I hear some fact that is more or less pretty useless, I remember it.

What row I left my car in at the mall I can't remember, but eating habits of long extinct animals I can remember. What's that all about? Something trivial I suppose.

Just today for instance, I heard that it has been about four years since our local summer high was more than 100 degrees. These last few summers were just "wet heat" I suppose and that's why they felt so hot, at least to me.

Did you know that cars don't feel wind chill? Well, nothing non-living feels anything any way I guess. But my car certainly feels a lot colder to me when it's a wind chill of below zero. Maybe it only feels colder when the door is open.

Great sources for trivia are the Discovery Channel and other history or science channels. Recently some TV channels have been running a series on planets in outer space -- mostly those local ones in our own solar system.

Another ran some shows on how the Earth would survive without any people on it. Not that any memories of our culture would survive of course.

Watching these shows, as interesting as they are, results in me filling my brain with more trivia. This trivia is all based on assumption and speculation -- arguably by some of the world's best minds, but still...

Why should it even matter to me that left unattended, mollusks will completely clog the Hoover Dam's intake valves, causing it to eventually burst open?

If finding out more about Jupiter will take another 50 years or more for the next satellite to gather data, do I have time to wait for the sequel?

Should I waste brain cells remembering how long it will take the Eiffel tower to rust?

I don't think I have that many to spare!

Do I really want to ponder what happens to all the pets a month after people suddenly disappear?

I wish they would explain where all of the people theoretically went! Maybe to Jupiter?

Some other trivia that I need to forget -- the largest fish in the sea is the whale shark. Uranus has rings -- well, only partial rings. Two full moons in one month results in the last full moon being called a blue moon. The Beatles came to fame first in Germany then in a subterranean pub in Liverpool. Ringo was the oldest, but not the first to be the band's drummer.

Did you know that there are currently two television series running about genealogy?

I'm sure you all have maybe too much trivia floating about in your gray cells as well.

There is a Sherlock Holmes story in which Dr. Watson mentioned that the moon circled the Earth. Holmes immediately told him to say no more about it that he would concentrate on immediately forgetting that bit of information! Why? Because, according to Holmes, the brain can only hold a certain amount of information and filling it with worthless trivia would soon overwhelm one's reason.

Well, thanks to television (Sherlock Holmes stories included) I'm getting close to the "overwhelming" mark.

We all cherish our memories, and that's as it should be. But if you had to move out some of the old to make room for the new, which memories would you be willing to chuck?

If I can't remember all of my own teacher's names from school, why should I find it so easy to remember Miss Crabtree who attempted holding class for the "Little Rascals"?

I might forget where I left a scrapbook I was working on two weeks ago but I remember the history books in their order on the public library shelves.

Which of these memories should I keep and which should I toss? Well, luckily I suppose, we don't really choose what we remember. If you disagree with that, think of the last time you had part of a song running through your mind all day. Eventually whatever prompted you to recall the song will come to mind and the song will fade.

Memory -- or the lack of it -- is just strange.

Until the next time friends try to remember what you thought you forgot. Yep, that'll keep you busy.