Erudition

[ndrosen]

I work in the Knox Building (these days, I do so when I’m not teleworking). Some years ago, I had a conference with my then supervisor, He Who May Not Be Named, and another senior of mine, Mr. M. This would probably have been to decide whether I had written sound rejections, and whether we could go to the Board of Appeals with them in response to an applicant’s Appeal Brief. After the business part, Mr. M asked whether I knew the maiden name of Henry Knox’s wife.

“Lucy Fluckner,” I answered.

I don’t think that I told him that I knew this, not from my profound study of history, and superb memory, but because I had read a trilogy of historical mysteries by Barbara Hambly, writing as Barbara Hamilton, in which Abigail Adams solves murder mysteries.

Comments

[thewayne]

We acquire and retain knowledge in strange ways. I am not a fan of the game Trivial Pursuit, nor do I often read old romance novels. But one piece that I did win in Trivial Pursuit was based on romance novels, and was knowing who the male protagonist was in Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff. And I knew it from Monty Python.