I forgot more about this post than you'll ever know.
There’s an old country song called, “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know.”
It was originally recorded by a duo called the Davis Sisters in 1953, then by Skeeter Davis (one of the sisters) for an album in 1959. Everyone from Bob Dylan to Patti Page to Johnny Cash to Elvis Costello has covered it since, so it’s a bit of a classic. The key line in the song is…
I forgot more than you’ll ever know about him
… which is clearly intended to be a slight on the new partner of their ex-beloved.
The song blames the new partner for “stealing” the love of their old flame, as though that love was a shoveled-out parking spot marked with a busted lawn chair in the snowy streets of Boston.
“I’ve been loving him for years, take your 2004 Elantra elsewhere!”
Lyrical side-eye aside, the notion that “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know about _________,” is a sentiment I’ve heard many times over the years about things like sports, politics, religion, money, and other things people like to argue about while others duck out to do the dishes. (“But we’re at a restaurant…”)
Truth be told, I’m confident that I’ve forgotten more than I know about anything, frankly, because my brain is hurtling toward the end of its fifth decade, and I have not sealed the cracks where things slip out. Where knowledge once owned certain spaces, it now rents day-to-day… and could get evicted at a moment’s notice in favor of song lyrics.
Is there anything I know more about than anyone else, though?
Am I an unparalleled expert in some field where no one else dares to stand? Have I immersed myself so deeply in any given subject that I could lose some portion of that depth and still win the category in Jeopardy?
No.
Okay, well… is there anything I know more about than the average person, then?
While this kinda depends on the average person who shows up (“Person needed for comparative knowledge test against leading connoisseur of WHAM! lyrics. Qualifications: Must be average.”) it seems much more attainable. If I’ve spent a lot of time doing a thing, or studying a thing, or reading about a thing, I might just know a thing or two about it.
This… all of this… is the strange trajectory of (not forgotten!) insomniac thoughts that will now become a series of posts here. A series of posts to jostle this little website back into action.
A busted lawn chair with a sign that says, “THIS ISN’T 2006, NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BLOG” has been minding this spot for a few years now, but darn it, I’m crumpling up that cranky message and using it to fuel my tiny (really tiny) flame of inspiration.
(And if anyone needs a busted lawn chair, let me know.)
