It’s funny, the things you remember

I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean funny peculiar.

I remember that before Bob Keeshan played Captain Kangaroo on TV he was the original Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody.

I remember that when I played clarinet in the Mansfield (Texas) High School band back in the 1950s, Marshall Tyson played alto saxophone, Dianne Phillips played tenor saxophone, and Bruce Hornell played baritone saxophone. John Galloway, Jerry Willis, and Jerry Harmon played trumpet and the latter Jerry's twin brother Terry played tuba. Kenneth Green played snare drum. There were a lot of other people in the band but I don't remember them or what they played.

I remember when there were nine planets in our solar system.

I remember that when Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles and became the Princess of Wales she bobbled the order of his names during their exchange of vows, saying "I take thee, Charles Arthur Philip George" instead of what she ought to have said, "I take thee, Charles Philip Arthur George" and I remember wondering whether the marriage was therefore not valid.

I remember watching the Democratic National Convention on our black-and-white television set in the summer of 1956 when newly-chosen candidate for the presidency Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois let the delegates decide who his Vice Presidential running mate would be. They chose Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee over someone I had never heard of, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

I remember that Adlai Stevenson, when asked how he felt after losing to Dwight D. Eisenhower, cited Abraham Lincoln's remark after losing an election, that it reminded him of the little boy who stubbed his toe in the dark and said he was too old to cry but it hurt too much to laugh. I cannot remember whether he said this in 1952 or 1956 but he lost to Eisenhower both times.

I remember seeing Olga Korbut and Mary Lou Retton and Nadia Comaneci win gold medals in gymnastics at various Summer Olympic Games.

I remember Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's spectacular ice dancing to the music of Maurice Ravel's Bolero in the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. They wore lavender.

I remember attending two musical productions at the Texas State Fair in Dallas in the mid-1950s. In one, Victor Herbert's operetta Naughty Marietta, I remember Patrice Munsel singing "Ah, Sweet Mystery Of Life, At Last I've Found You". In the other, Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, I remember Kay Armen as Bloody Mary singing both "Happy Talk" and "Bali Ha'i". I have no memory at all of who portrayed Ensign Nellie Forbush or French expatriate Emile De Becque but undoubtedly they sang "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair" and "Some Enchanted Evening", respectively.

My most vivid memory from the world of sports is a tie between (a) Atlanta Braves TV announcer Skip Caray yelling "Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!" in 1992 after Sid Bream slid into home base in the bottom of the ninth inning of the seventh game of the National League Championship Series and (b) University of Georgia announcer Larry Munson yelling "Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott! Lindsay Scott!" in 1980 after the 93-yard winning touchdown play near the end of the fourth quarter in the Georgia-Florida game that year.

Here is a knock-knock joke for you.

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Sam and Janet.
Sam and Janet who?
(singing) Sam and Janet evening you may see a stranger, you may see a stranger across a crowded room.

I'm guessing you will remember this knock-knock joke.