an endless fund of
useless knowledge I understand
… but floyd of rosedale?

Over the years I have accumulated an endless fund of useless knowledge.

I have probably forgot more things now than I remember.

I remember that I know this things.

But I don’t remember or recall quickly what the thing is that I am trying to remember.

Much like Yogi Berra knowing that at home he had a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. He knew he had it somewhere because he knew but he didn’t want to look for it because he might not find it so knowing it had was more important than knowing he looked for it and didn’t find it.

When I was kid, we would often play the home edition of the game, Jeopardy.

Out of the box, the game came with little clickers which were either soon broken or we took them to play paratroopers at D Day as portrayed with clickers in the movie The Longest Day.

You would use the clicker to answer the question.

I mean, as it was Jeopardy, you would use the clicker to give the question that went with the answer.

Without the clickers, we would just clap our hands and then argue over who clapped first.

Every once in a awhile our Dad would play for a few rounds.

He would hear the answer, “John Nance Gardner” and know that he knew the question but instead of clapping his hands he would say, “JUST WAIT – I KNOW THIS” and then he would think a minute and we would wait, and then he would say, “Who was FDR’s Vice President for his first two terms.”

Then he would clap.

And we would laugh and laugh and say no, no no.

I was always good at Jeopardy myself but my ultimate moment was when I was taking a nap when the TV was and Jeopardy was on and they had a VISUAL Daily Double, which meant there was a picture of the building on the screen

I woke enough to hear the TV but my face was still buried in the sofa when the feller said, “This Art Museum …”

Without waiting to for the clue to finish or looking at the TV, I yelled “What is the Guggenheim.”

Which was correct.

I sat up and my wife looked at me with the look of oh brother.

And I said, “Name another art museum you can identify from seeing the building?“

But I digress.

So there it is.

I read a lot.

I search out odd facts.

I know a lot of useless things.

Oddly enough, back in the day when “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” was a hot show, no one and I mean, NO ONE ever said to me, “Mike if I get on that show, would you be be my ‘phone a a friend?’“

To tell you the truth, I think deep down no one would trust me to not try to be funny and slip them the wrong answer like of course it was Rutherford B. Hayes who was the first President to use a typewriter … even though everyone knows it was Woodrow Wilson.”

It would be too much temptation to go for the laugh and my friends knew it.

So here I sit.

All this accumulated knowledge and nothing to show for it.

I will admit that I do wonder where it all came from somedays.

And some days, I wonder, why do I know that?

Take the other day.

Watching the college football scores and half listening I heard the words, “Floyd of Rosedale goes back to Iowa City” and the other feller on TV says ” whattttt??”

I mean gee whiz.

Who hasn’t heard of Floyd of Rosedale?

On the other hand.

Why do I?

write name so can be
identified – family
be notified

Taylor County (FLA) Sheriff’s Office – Division of Emergency Management

PLEASE READ ‼️

• We are requesting that all residents, guests, and evacuees refrain from returning to the area until officially directed by the Emergency Operations Center. This directive will be communicated via social media, news outlets, radio, and emergency alert systems. Returning prematurely poses significant risks due to expected heavy flooding and other hazards. Many roads will be impassable, and there may be downed power lines, fallen trees, and other dangerous conditions.
• If you or someone you know chose not to evacuate, PLEASE write your, Name, birthday and important information on your arm or leg in A PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified.
• We ask that you kindly provide the following information so Search and Rescue teams can prioritize these locations:
• Is the residence inland or on the coastline?
• Full address of the residence
• Your name
• Name(s) of the resident(s) at this location
• Number of individuals and animals present
• Contact information for both yourself and the resident(s)
• Any additional information, such as a recent photograph of the individual(s), disabilities, special requirements.
  Please email this information to: TCEM@Taylorsheriff.org
  Thank you for your cooperation.

We didn’t evacuate nor did we write any identifying information on our arms with a permanent marker.

We lost power on and off over night and now no internet or TV.

We do have cell phone service which is a big plus over last Monday when everything was gone.

And thanks to our cell phone service, tornado alerts, hurricane alerts and flooding alerts kept our alerts alerting all night long.

Then about 4 a.m., the wind started.

That low road of a passing train that folks describe for a tornado but this didn’t last 10 or 20 minutes but hours.

It just roared and if anything got louder like when one of those jets from the Marine Base fly over head.

We got up about 4 a.m. to set things sideways on the floor of our balcony.

Kind of nutty thing to do at 4 a.m. but who wants a wooden rocking chair to be tossed through the front windows.

The next morning came and it was morning.

Still windy but blue sky and a lot of mess.

One of those days we are glad the night was over and also glad we lived in an apartment and didn’t have to get out there and rake.

Got to find a bright side.

ignore these limits
thrilling fact that night owls have
been vindicated

From the article, Forget the 5am starts! Night owls like me possess the real secret of success by Arwa Mahdawi in the article where Ms. Mahdawi writes:

Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that “self-declared ‘night owls’ generally tend to have higher cognitive scores”. And we are talking quite a lot higher. “Evening types … scored about 13.5% higher than morning types in one group and 7.5% higher than morning types in another group”, according to a write-up of the study.

Experts have urged caution in interpreting the findings, saying, for instance, that there are “important limitations”. Still, I think we can ignore these limitations for now and focus on the thrilling fact that night owls have finally been vindicated.

I have never ever been a morning person.

I have never ever been called a morning person.

Sadly, most of my life has been designed to begin with an early morning start.

Larry McMurtry’s thoughts on Captain Woodrow Call and getting up in the morning in the book Lonesome Dove might describe me.

Mr. McMurtry writes: To Call’s regret he had never been able to come awake easily. His joints felt like they were filled with glue, and it was an irritation to see Augustus sitting on the black kettle looking as fresh as if he’d slept all night, when in fact he had probably played poker till one or two o’clock. Getting up early and feeling awake was the one skill he had never truly perfected — he got up, of course, but it never felt natural.

Now I can’t stay up.

I miss those dark hours for reading.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

That’s when it seemed like my brain really kicked in.

Growing up in a family with 10 brothers and sisters.

College with 4 guys sharing a 450 square feet of apartment.

Seven kids in my family.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

So there is research that shows us folks who liked being up at night have higher cognitive scores that those morning folks.

I didn’t need any research.

It was something I already knew.

If those morning folks had been smarter, they would have been up late at night.