Senior Bowl

I was talking on the telephone with a fan of the Washington Nationals and for some reason neither of us could recall the name of the lanky, scraggly-bearded shaggy-haired high-salaried power-hitting right fielder who once played for the Phillies and had a hard time last season but seemed to be starting out well this year, and whose grandfather played shortstop for the Pirates fifty year or so years ago.

Inasmuch as I once had near-perfect recall of such trivia, I was frustrated by the failure of memory. But I decided that this time I wasn't going to google the Nationals' roster but instead was going to force myself to cough up that name, no matter how many polysaccharides had clogged my synaptic pathways. I set my search memory program on full blast, and after about 45 minutes, while I was scrubbing the sink, out popped the moniker. I called the Washington fan and whispered into the telephone, triumphantly, these three syllables: Jay Son Werth. 

How does the human brain do that? You can't bring up a word or phrase, and then, an hour or a day later, there it is! Tiny chemical processes or electrical impulses chase from synapse to synapse until they just happen to happen upon the neuron or neurons where "Jayson Werth" is stored? Really? Hard to fathom. However it's accomplished, it's superbly miraculous.

But o-so-slow compared to the instant recall of my golden olden days.

So now I have this idea for a TV game show, modeled after College Quiz Bowl, but called Senior Bowl. The format: when a question is asked, competitors start the clock, which can run for, let's say, a couple of days. And also start the videotape machine. Competitors go about their business and the first person with the correct answer wins the round. When the tape is carefully and dramatically edited, it's perfect reality TV for oldsters.

Announcer: "Congratulations to prizewinner Vivian de St. Vrain, who was able to correctly identify the singer of "Duke of Earl" in only 17 hours, 12 minutes, and 43 seconds!"

A major breakthrough in golden-years tv.

And by the way, I can now proclaim to all the waiting world that the name of Jayson Werth's shortstop grandfather is -- "Ducky" Schofield.

Comments

[CKNC]

Too funny!