Lo, how the mighty are fallen, or I am not always right

First things first: On this day -- March 19, 2020 -- the vernal equinox will take place for most of the Americas. It will occur at 11:50 pm Eastern Daylight Time, ten minutes before tomorrow comes. The rest of the world will see its arrival in the early hours of March 20 because of a little thing called time zones. This year's vernal equinox happens to be the earliest it has occurred in 124 years.

My barber calls me a walking enyclopedia.

I hope people don't find me annoying. If I encountered me, I probably would be annoyed. I do know a lot of stuff, mostly trivia. I don't study it or learn it on purpose, it’s just that things I hear or read seem to get stuck in my memory banks. My theme song ought to be "You're Easy To Remember, But So Hard To Forget."

However, there are big gaps in my memory banks, subjects about which I know very little and subject about which I know absolutely nothing. I try to avoid those subjects as much as possible because I don't want my abysmal ignorance in certain areas to be on display.

One of my favorite television programs is Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek. I love to call out the answers and many times I am right, but many times I don't have a clue. Well, they give me a clue, but it doesn't help.

What stuns me are the times I know the answer or make an educated guess based on the clue and not one of the three Jeopardy! players presses a buzzer. In recent days I have found myself yelling "Haile Selassie!" and "Tweedledum and Tweedledee!" and "Singapore Sling!" at the screen, but the contestants never seem to hear me. By way of explanation, I am not a drinker, but I am, as I said, a reader and a listener. The category was Alliterative Two-Word Names Of Alcoholic Drinks and the clue, which was most helpful, mentioned the Malayan peninsula, so what else could it have been? One contestant guessed Rob Roy but the last time I looked, Scotland was not on the Malayan peninsula.

The Final Jeopardy question the other night was something about a movie studio's high water bill during filming of a movie in 1952. I said Singing In The Rain (one of those "What else could it be?" moments) and two people answered correctly, but one woman had written down The Wizard Of Oz. Everybody knows that The Wizard Of Oz was released in 1939, not 1952. Don't they? Apparently not.

This is long and meandering, but I'll get to the point eventually.

Yesterday our 23-year-old grandson drove us 20 miles to my monthly eye appointment so that I could have another injection in my right eye for macular degeneration. Normally I can do the driving, but this month I was scheduled to have my eyes dilated, and it would have been rather difficult to drive the 20 miles back home with my eyes dilated.

On the way I was telling him that last month I was examined by a new technician who told me his name was Mel. Tall, thin, and black, Mel spoke with an accent I couldn't identify. He told me without my even asking that Mel was short for Melchizedek. I recognized the name from the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, so I assumed he came from a Christian family. I asked him where he had come to the U.S. from and he said he had spent the last five years in the U.K., but that he was from Ghana originally.

At this point, my grandson said, "Oh, Ghana! That makes sense that he went to the U.K. because Ghana is part of the British Commonwealth of Nations."

I, the family walking encyclopedia/know-it-all, said, "No, I don't think Ghana is one of the British Commonwealth nations."

My grandson said he must be thinking of another country starting with G.

I knew it couldn't be Gibraltar because Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, not a Commonwealth nation, so I, being my ever-clever self, said, "Gaustralia!". He laughed, and when I said "Ganada!" he laughed even more. My third possibility was G-New Zealand. "And it's still pronounced New Zealand," he said, "because the G is silent!"

We always laugh a lot when we're together.

Hours later, back home, in the evening, something made me google British Commonwealth of Nations. There it was, plain as day: Ghana.

I pulled out my smart phone and texted my grandson. "I'm only going to say this once. You were right and I was wrong! Ghana IS a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. I looked it up."

He replied, "Be still my beating heart! I never thought this day would come. HaHa".

My mother used to say, "Pride goeth before a fall" which is also from the Old Testament (Book of Proverbs). It's not an exact quotation. The full quote is "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

My hope is that I am neither proud nor haughty even though others are always telling me how much I know. What I know is how much I don't know. No, that's wrong. I don't have a clue how much I don't know, but I'm sure it's voluminous.

If you catch me getting proud or haughty, you have my permission to sneak up on me and kick me in the behind.