“Felix the cat …”
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear those three words?
If you are an early baby boomer, you might remember there was a cartoon series by that name that ran from 1958-61. There were 134 episodes, and while I literally have no memory of scenes from any of them, I do remember this:
“Felix the cat, the wonderful wonderful cat. Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks …”
Before you shake your head and say “Huh?” I’ll tell you this post isn’t about Felix the cat, men named Felix or cats in general. It’s peripherally about old television cartoons, but mostly it’s about the vagaries of memory.
I’m sure I must have watched “Felix” many times. It came on when I was 8 years old and went off the air when I was 11. I know I haven’t seen a single episode of it in the last 60 years or so, but I doesn’t surprise me a bit that I would remember the first couple of lines of the theme song.
After all, when I listen to the Sixties station on satellite radio in my car, there are very few songs I don’t recognize from the first two seconds or so of introductory music.
I heard them so many times back in the day that they are embedded in my mind.
I not only remember the song theme from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” I also remember the words to the song played over the credits at the end of the show.
“Now it’s time to say goodbye to Jed and all his kin …”
It isn’t just songs and television either. Do you know who Evelyn Nesbit, Harry K. Thaw and Stanford White were?
I do.
Here’s a clue. It was the O.J. case of 1906.
Do you know who Bobby Franks was?
Here’s a clue. He was the victim in the O.J. case of 1924. I first learned about him when I read “Life Plus 99 Years,” the autobiography of one of the two men who killed him.
But all that was either popular culture or so scandalous at the time that it became part of the culture.
When I do the daily crossword puzzle in either the New York Times or the Washington Post, I am amazed at how many things there is no reason for me to know that pop into my mind. Obscure geographical or historical facts, obscure inventions, tenets of religion other than my own.
Some of it is vocabulary. A few years ago on Facebook, there was some sort of test that measured the size of your vocabulary. My score was the highest one I saw, including my friend who always scores one point higher than I do in online tests.
He was the one who taught me that it’s no fun to have a sidekick when the person who is your sidekick insists he’s not your sidekick.
Here’s one for you. How many people do you know for whom it isn’t a part of their jobs who can recite three different people’s Social Security numbers, especially when one of them is someone they haven’t seen for 40 years?
I know my own SSN and I know my wife’s as well. Good but nothing special, but I also remember the nine digits belonging to my first wife, and my marriage to her ended in 1980. I suppose it’s possible I could remember even more, but as far as I can recall, I have never seen anyone else’s Social Security number.
Still, things definitely do get stuck in your head.
“… Felix the cat, Felix … The wonderful, wonderful cat, You’ll laugh so much your sides will ache, Your heart will go pit-a-pat
Watching Felix …”