I took the SAT 34 years ago today. Why does my brain retain this information?

THINGS THAT ARE STUCK IN MY BRAIN FOR WHICH I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO USE:

• The B-side songs for every Men at Work single on 45
• The usual starting lineup for the 1979 Cleveland Indians
• Casualty counts for a host of World War I battles
• Detailed plotlines for most episodes of The Andy Griffith Show
• The quadratic formula
• My News-Herald paper route from 1981 (seriously, I could deliver that route today and not miss a house)
• The fact that I took the SAT on this date in 1987.

To that last point...who cares? Why would my brain decide this is something worth remembering?

It also likes to point out that, after I finished the test, I drove directly to Solon High School to join my track team at the Solon Relays.

Is there any practical use for this information? Of course not. But this has never deterred my brain, which delights in storing away the most irrelevant of nuggets.

On the other hand, it will not reveal to me such things as where I put my wedding ring, the exact ingredients in my wife's favorite Starbucks drink, and which light switches control which lights in our house (the house where we have lived for nearly 18 years).

Why, brain, why? Why do you do this to me?

Maybe you explained it to me one time and now I'm just forgetting.

It's Ron Howard's birthday. I care, you don't, and that's probably how it should be.

NOTE: I don't like to recycle content, but this particular topic is on my mind every March 1st, without fail. Why does Ron Howard's birthday stick in my brain? I don't know, but following is what I wrote about it almost exactly six years ago on March 2, 2015.

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I am quite possibly one of only a handful of people outside of Ron Howard's family who know without being told that yesterday was his birthday.

Every March 1st (I'm not kidding, every March 1st), my wife and I have a conversation that goes something like this:

ME: Hey, guess what today is?

TERRY (thinking for a second to recall whether it's one of our kid's birthdays or something): I don't know?

ME: It's Ron Howard's birthday!

TERRY (clearly unimpressed): Oh...thanks.

Why, you might ask, do I have Richie Cunningham's birthday memorized? Because I just do. Because that's me: I fill my head with meaningless facts and dates about which no one cares. And I do so at the expense of remembering more important things, such as my children's names and my wife's favorite Starbucks drink.

NOTE: The whole Terry's-favorite-Starbucks-drink thing actually caused me a bit of pain and suffering a couple of months ago. I was going to Starbucks to buy treats for the family, and I asked her what she wanted. "You should know what I want," she said. "What's my favorite drink at Starbucks?" And I was sure I knew, except for the fact that I didn't. Well, I knew part of it. She had to remind me of the rest, which was not the right answer on my part, let me tell you. (For the record, she likes a grande skinny caramel macchiato with whip.)

But anyway, I know all sorts of useless stuff. It makes for a nice party trick, and I'm good to have around in case an impromptu game of Trivial Pursuit breaks out. But in most real-life applications, my knowledge and skills do not apply.

You probably know people like me: Not necessarily intelligent, but a brain overflowing with raw data. It's the truly talented people of the world who actually do something with this data and turn it into something useful. People like me simply recite it back on command, which like I said is kind of impressive the first time or two you see it, but after that is a bit repetitive.

One of the things I know without looking up is Ron Howard's birthday. Every March 1st, he's the guy I'm thinking of. The calendar turns and I get the itch to watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.

Like the one where Opie tells Andy about a mystical character named Mr. McBeevee. And Andy thinks Opie is just making him up, but he's really not. And then Opie gets threatened with a spanking when he insists that Mr. McBeevee gave him a quarter, and it turns out in the end that Mr. McBeevee is a real-life telephone lineman.

That episode? I could tell you every line of dialogue. My computer password at work (i.e., something extremely useful to me)? I had to think for almost two solid minutes just now before I remembered it. It's not easy being me.

So yesterday was Ron Howard's birthday...

I am quite possibly one of only a handful of people outside of Ron Howard's family who knew without being told that yesterday was his birthday.

Every March 1st (I'm not kidding, every March 1st), my wife and I have a conversation that goes something like this:

ME: Hey, guess what today is?

TERRY (thinking for a second to recall whether it's one of our kid's birthdays or something): I don't know?

ME: It's Ron Howard's birthday!

TERRY (clearly unimpressed): Oh...thanks.

Why, you might ask, do I have Richie Cunningham's birthday memorized? Because I just do. Because that's me: I fill my head with meaningless facts and dates about which no one cares. And I do so at the expense of remembering more important things, such as my children's names and my wife's favorite Starbucks drink.

NOTE: The whole Terry's-favorite-Starbucks-drink thing actually caused me a bit of pain and suffering a couple of months ago. I was going to Starbucks to buy treats for the family, and I asked her what she wanted. "You should know what I want," she said. "What's my favorite drink at Starbucks?" And I was sure I knew, except for the fact that I didn't. Well, I knew part of it. She had to remind me of the rest, which was not the right answer on my part, let me tell you. (For the record, she likes a grande skinny caramel macchiato with whip.)

But anyway, I know all sorts of useless stuff. It makes for a nice party trick, and I'm good to have around in case an impromptu game of Trivial Pursuit breaks out. But in most real-life applications, my knowledge and skills do not apply.

You probably know people like me: Not necessarily intelligent, but a brain overflowing with raw data. It's the truly talented people of the world who actually do something with this data and turn it into something useful. People like me simply recite it back on command, which like I said is kind of impressive the first time or two you see it, but after that is a bit repetitive.

One of the things I know without looking up is Ron Howard's birthday. Every March 1st, he's the guy I'm thinking of. The calendar turns and I get the itch to watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.

Like the one where Opie tells Andy about a mystical character named Mr. McBeevee. And Andy thinks Opie is just making him up, but he's really not. And then Opie gets threatened with a spanking when he insists that Mr. McBeevee gave him a quarter, and it turns out in the end that Mr. McBeevee is a real-life telephone lineman.

That episode? I could tell you every line of dialogue. My computer password at work (i.e., something extremely useful to me)? I had to think for almost two solid minutes just now before I remembered it. It's not easy being me.

Five TV shows I will stop and watch any time, anywhere

I've mentioned before that I don't watch much TV. And it's not because I have any philosophical objections to it, I just have too many other things going on.

But when I do sit down for some tube time, and I actually have control of the remote (NOTE: THIS HAPPENS APPROXIMATELY TWICE PER CENTURY), I am for whatever reason drawn to the channels that air old shows.

Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but the shows I like all aired in the 60s and 70s. I don't necessarily think TV was better then than it is now. But I think it was more suited to my tastes. And we're talking about me here, so the older shows get the nod.

If I'm flipping through our 47,000 digital cable channels and come across any of these programs, I will stop and watch. Every time. Guaranteed:

(1) M*A*S*H

There was a period in the early and mid-80s when WUAB Channel 43 in Cleveland would show a rerun of M*A*S*H every night at 7. And my brother would record it on our old, 50-pound Curtis Mathis VCR. This was a VCR that came out back when "VHS or Beta?" actually meant something. It was heavy. And it lasted a long time.

Anyway, my brother recorded all the episodes of M*A*S*H, which got me into watching the show. There was nothing else like it on TV, nor has there been since. If you're a M*A*S*H fan, usually you have to declare your allegiance in four important areas:

• Henry Blake or Sherman Potter? (correct answer = Sherman Potter)
• Trapper or BJ? (correct answer = Trapper)
• Frank Burns or Charles Emerson Winchester? (correct answer = Frank Burns)
• Old Hateful Hot Lips or Later Sympathetic Hot Lips? (correct answer = Old Hateful Hot Lips)

I think I would pay $20 just for the chance to watch an episode of M*A*S*H right now. I wonder where my brother's stock of recorded VHS episodes is?

(2) Hogan's Heroes

Sticking with the military theme...

Everything about this show was wildly inaccurate and improbable. But that was the point, right? You either enjoyed seeing the Nazis portrayed as semi-lovable buffoons or you were appalled by it. I think I've always been a little of both.

The guy for whom I felt the worst was Kinch, also known as Sgt. Ivan Kinchloe. Kinch was the African-American guy. He also had the best fake German accent. But he could only use it over the phone or the radio because...well, because not even a show like this could get away with having a dark-skinned guy pass for an Aryan in person. So Kinch always had to stay back at the POW camp while the other guys went out on wacky adventures dressed as genocidal psychopaths. Poor guy.

(3) The Andy Griffith Show

Who made this show? Don Knotts made this show. Barney Fife is easily one of the top five funniest characters in television history. And I'm willing to argue him up into the top three.

Special mention goes to Otis the Town Drunk, who wins the award for Best Portrayal of a Perpetually Inebriated Person Back When It Was OK to Make Fun of Alcoholism. Otis even let himself into jail every night just to get away from his wife. I love 60s TV!

May I present to you an excellent scene in which these two classic characters interact? Don't mind if I do:

(4) The Carol Burnett Show

The fun here was figuring how far you could get into any given episode before Tim Conway would get Harvey Korman to bust up. Harvey didn't necessarily want to bust up, of course. He was trying to stay in character. But Tim was so brilliant, and so spontaneously funny, I can't imagine anyone could have held a straight face for long.

And let's not forget Carol herself. And Vicki Lawrence. All four of the main cast members were outstanding comedic actors...to the point that I think they spoiled us for any other comedy variety show. The genre sort of fell by the wayside once the 80s hit, and I think it's because The Carol Burnett Show was so good.

(5) All in the Family

If you make me watch one sitcom over and over for the rest of my life, I'm probably going with this one.

It's dated in many ways, and part of its genius lies in how far ahead of its time the show really was. But I still think much of the writing was timeless, and it worked because Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton were so darned good.

Please, if you do nothing else today, watch this scene (my favorite one in the show's history). I can't imagine you not at least smiling at it, if not cracking up. Just awesome: