Places please

Good morning, homemen and homewomen. I'm writing you today between sneezes, nose blows, watery eyes, and a general sense of yuckiness. Literally every single person in my office had a cold last week except me, so I knew it was just a matter of time. That doesn't make it any more fun though. And based on the lack of thoughts I currently have, I think it's safe to say that Sudafed should not count as a performance enhancing drug. Let's see what I can scrounge up for you today.

So I'm not sure if you heard this or not, but we got a new President this week. I'm totally serious. While watching and reading the coverage of the inauguration, I naturally started to think about my knowledge of our country's Commanders in Chief throughout the years. First, I wondered how many I remembered in order. I say "remembered" because I had learned a song in sixth grade that taught me that information (ending with George H.W. Bush before he needed to be known by both of his middle initials). I have numbers one through seven down pat, and then from FDR (32) all the way to Obama (44) with no problem. In between that is fuzzy though. I have pockets of knowledge from the song, like "Pierce, Buchanan, Lincoln." Knowing that Lincoln was the 16th, I can occasionally pull out a Jeopardy answer with some simple subtraction. And I know that Tyler preceded Polk, but not when. I guess I know 17 too, because Andrew Johnson took over after Lincoln's untimely demise. That might be it though.

Here's the problem with that song - they forced it to rhyme instead of just letting me memorize a melody. For example, it has an "oh" following Jefferson's name so it can later rhyme with "James Monroe." I seem to recall an "ooh" in there somewhere, but I know not where. And then there are superfluous lines like, "Some I can remember, some I can't" to rhyme with Grant. I'm sure the writers were pleased that it rhymed, but those extra words ended up hurting the longterm memorization for me.

On the contrary, the song I learned with the states in alphabetical order is one I'll know for the rest of my life. It's fairly simple, but it's dynamic enough that it really feels like a song instead of repeating the same twenty-second tune over and over again (as the Presidents' song does). This knowledge came in handy once in late 2000. I went over to my friend Lisa's parents' house with a group of friends, and they started talking about the most recent episode of the Friends tv show. On the show, some of the characters were trying to list all fifty states. "I can do that," I said confidently. "No, everyone thinks it's really easy but it's not," Lisa said. "No, I can do it because...I know a song." I paused because I thought it would make me sounds super nerdy (as opposed to my normal nerdy), but Lisa was thrilled because I could serve as the answer key. So they all sat and wrote for ten minutes, then I slowly said the states in alphabetical order while the put check marks next to the ones they had. It was difficult just saying the names instead of singing them, but it was for the best.

I just had a strange memory that came out of nowhere. I can clearly picture my old music teacher playing the piano while we were learning that song. For some reason, she kept singing Iowa as if it were pronounced, "Ioway." We didn't, and kept singing it with its normal pronunciation. She stopped and went back a few to the "Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana" section before singing it again and making us all join in the "Ioway" nonsense. It went unspoken amongst my classmates, but somehow we all made the same decision right then and there: in rehearsals, we'll do it her way; for the actual assembly in front of our parents, we're going back to "Iowa." And that we did. I know Missouri, Nevada, and Oregon can all be pronounced a couple of ways, but I still have never heard anyone else ever say "Ioway." Can anyone shed some light on this repressed memory for me?

One thing worries me about my knowledge of this song of the U.S. states: what if Puerto Rico or some other place becomes a state? I don't expect that to happen, because I think we're pretty happy with the round number of 50. (In fact, while I have absolutely no proof, I believe that was a major motivating factor in allowing Alaska and Hawaii into the union.) The song doesn't have any space between Pennsylvania and Rhode Island to accommodate the new state, and almost more importantly, we'd lose the amazing fifty/nifty rhyme. "Fifty-one nifty fun United States" just doesn't have the same ring to it. I think the solution is clear if Puerto Rico is granted statehood: do we really need two Dakotas? I don't think so.

This is all very reminiscent of another category, don't you think? Yep, those pesky planets. Look what happened when poor Pluto was demoted. Our mnemonic devices have been rendered nonsensical. Depending on how you learned it, now it's, "My very excited/eager/educated mother just served us nine..." or "Mary's violet eyes make John stay up nights..." That one got a lot dirtier, don't you think? Since neither of those really works anymore, I say we collectively come up with a better one. Put on your thinking caps, homepeople of UOPTA. What can/should MVEMJSUN stand for going forward? Comment away, and I'll chime in with some that I come up with as well. Let's have some fun together.

I was once tasked with coming up with a mnemonic device for work, and I think I passed with flying colors. While working at UCSB, a new residence hall was erected. We were going to be based there for our summer operations, and the hall had a quad with five buildings in it. The building names were Tecolote, Cienaga, Jalama, Arguello, and Miranda. Naturally, it only took a week or so before all 25 student staff members knew it as, "The Crazy Jews Ate Matzos." Success!

Now it's time to wipe our runny nosies on over to the Car Watch.

My homey Rockabye sent me this license plate: "CNCITED." He said it was on a brand new Range Rover. While I don't think by any means that someone needs to be conceited to have a nice car, I do appreciate the honesty. I wouldn't have just assumed that the driver was conceited, so at least the plate clearly lets people know who they're dealing with. Unless it's a guy named Ted making some pun, I don't really understand the allure of having a negative personality trait broadcast so publicly.

Next, in the category of "I could never make stuff like this up," I was driving and minding my own business when a car cut me off without signaling. I didn't have to slam on my breaks or anything, but I would've appreciated a little advance notice. Oh yeah, the car's plate was "SGNL PLZ." Unless there was a license plate frame I didn't see that said, "I Can't (SGNL PLZ) Don't Hate Me" to make it a complete sentence, then I smell something hypocritical going on.

Lastly, I saw this license plate: "WHACKY 1." Clearly s/he's not kidding about that with that creative spelling and everything. I mean, I'd second-guess any self-proclaimed "WACKY 1," but that H really showcases the individuality and penchant for bucking the system. I'm guessing "UNEEEEK" and "REBBUL 1" were taken.

And so, with my red nose and have-you-been-crying? eyes, I'm out of here. Sorry that this post is a little shorter than most of the others, but these are all the thoughts I have right now. I plan on being a hell of a lot better by next Friday (or hopefully well before that), so I encourage you all to be healthy during that time as well. In the meantime, let's get happy: Happy 1.5 birthdays both today to little Keira and tomorrow to my little cousin Rio. It was very eventful 1.5 years ago, as you might imagine. And on Thursday, our good friend The Mills turns the big 3-0. Mazel tov, homey. Take care, everyone. Start thinking up your new planet mnemonics now and comment like the wind! As always, please feel free to write me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything.