This is all about ... something

If I can remember, I'm going to tell you the tale of my ongoing effort to win the memory marathon.

Most of you, I'm sure, have had those nagging occasions when a tune pops into your head -- but you can't remember its name.

As my gray cells struggle for survival, I find myself confronted more and more often with memory challenges. So far I haven't wound up in a strange town wondering how I got there. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm just saying it hasn't happened yet.

Or if it has, I don't recall it.

You see how perplexing this memory business is?

Part of my memory misery is compounded by Shape Up Cape, a wonderful program that encourages exercise-challenged folks like me to give our hearts and lungs a decent workout on a regular basis.

My exercise of choice is jogging because (a) it's good for me, (b) needs no talent, (c) requires no special equipment and (d) is free.

But as much as I enjoy being by myself at 5 a.m. in the morning on the dark streets of the River City of Roses, jogging is about the most boring thing I can think of that anyone chooses to do on purpose.

Several years ago I jogged religiously on a treadmill and counted every step, or every other step, or every breath I took. I figured out mathematical ratios and breaths-to-tenths-of-a-mile factors. Then I read a magazine article that said compulsive counters usually have a severe mental disorder, so I stopped. At that point, jogging was no longer simply boring. It became deadly dull.

Now that I jog outdoors, I find that the hills and miles go by faster if I'm thinking hard about a problem or a decision that has to be made. Lately, however, all of my mental might has been focused on trying to remember stuff that's not worth knowing.

For example:

I cannot tell you why this popped into my head, but while jogging a couple of weeks ago it occurred to me that I could not name the capital of Northern Ireland.

That's the bad news. The good news is that trying to think of the name of the capital of Northern Ireland, useless as it is, makes the time fly. I was none too anxious to solve this particular riddle, because then I wouldn't have anything to think about except where my feet were going. Which I already knew, of course.

Wednesday night it came to me. And I wasn't even jogging. Belfast. End of memory struggle.

Well, almost.

You see, I also have started to notice a lot of references to CNN in my reading material. CNN this and CNN that. I never noticed much of anything about CNN before these memory gymnastics started.

Here's the kicker.

I couldn't remember what the C in CNN stood for.

I knew the NN stood for News Network. But for the life of me I couldn't think of that C word.

Not Continental. Not Central. Not Columbia. Not Consolidated.

And so it went.

When jogging, I usually start at the front of the alphabet and work my way, letter by letter, to the one that makes me think of the missing word. But when my mind is blank, the ABCs are no help.

Finally, I remembered. Cable. Cable News Network. And now that I had remembered, I also realized what totally useless information it was.

Not too long ago I lost track of Italian tenor Pavarotti's first name. Is this something I needed to know? Of course not. But not knowing turned the mystery name into a quest.

Do you know how long it takes to work up to L when you're jogging? Every morning I'd make it to F or G, but never to L, which is where you would find Luciano.

You are probably slurping milk from your bowl of Wheaties wondering why I didn't start each morning's alphabet exercise where I left off the day before.

Good advice. But only if you can remember where you left off.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.