Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Never been good with History

I'm just not good at memorizing dates and stuff. Do you know what I remember from my world history class? Mrs. Murphy (aka Murph the Surf) wore a huge pony tail like extension in her hair and a different outfit (all the way down to different stilleto heels and different costume jewelry) every day. She showed us a slide show of her trip to Egypt in which she did not wear the hair extension (she looked fine without it) and told a story of little boys at the pyramids who asked for money and they would run up the pyramids and back down..."but sometimes they fell and well...you know...SPLAT!" Yup, that's my knowledge of world history.


On my way to work each morning, (provided I actually get out of the house prior to 7 am), on the news radio show I listen to on the way to work, they have a timeline contest. They list several events in a given year along with soundbites from each (I think theirs also correspond with the month), and you're supposed to guess the year. I try to play along, but I've never called in, because while I'm always very close. I'm almost always a year or two off.


It starts off with a couple world events, normally 1 is political and the other is not:

A bomb aboard a TWA plane over Athens kills four Americans.

Levi Strauss introduces a line of khaki casual pants in the fall under the name Dockers.

Then they give a movie:

“Back to School” starring Rodney Dangerfield played on the big screen.


Then they give a TV show which either debuted or had a huge event that year:

“ALF” debuted on NBC.

Then they give a radio hit:

"Walk Like and Egyptian” topped the charts.

So can you guess the timeline year? (No cheating...although I have no prize really...so if you cheat, you're only cheating yourself!)

Then they play a commercial and someone talks about financial stuff, and they come back and announce the name of the winner and the answer.

Anyway, on days I miss it completely, it feels like my day is off kilter a little.

But lately there has been another phenomenon. I'm listening, I hear the list, but then I somehow miss the answer. It's like I zone out or something. I suppose at least at that point I can google one of the clues to get the answer once I get to work, but I hardly ever remember to do that.





Answer will be posted tomorrow, if I don't zone out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surfin' Murph!! I had her too, but I don't remember her telling us about her trip to Egypt. I do remember the outfits. Never wore the same one twice.

I'm thinking the year was maybe 1988? I am horrible with dates myself.

That picture of Landon is cracking me up.

Anonymous said...

I didn't get the Surfin' Murph experience, but I've heard some interesting stories about her class.

I'm guessing 1986 on the year. I seem to remember ALF being a big thing in second grade.

Aunt Becky said...

Hehehe, I suck at history too.