Brains On

My mother loves puzzle books. In her retirement years she ordered crossword puzzle books by the case. It wasn't always easy to procure a new puzzle book in her small town so she made sure she always had a ready supply in her own closet. She secured the little books horizontally onto a clipboard so she had a good working surface. Most of her pencils had big pink erasers stuck on their ends. Fun for hours.

She still loves puzzles, despite her fuzzy brain. She has added word finds to her latest puzzle fun and I have seen her tackle word scrambles and hidden picture challenges as well. Her doctor loves to hear that she is into puzzles so everyone is happy.

Last week she was working on a puzzle book I hadn't seen before. She was unable to tell me the source of the book but she was busy working her way through it. The theme of the book was all things American and the mark on the book was "VFW" so I suspect it was a product of recent Veteran's Day events. She showed me some of the different puzzles she had finished and I was impressed with her accomplishments.

Three particular puzzles were left untouched. They were trivia questions pertaining to different aspects of America. We decided to make a game of it and see who could get the most questions correct. The American Flag was our first category. Epic fail. Out of twenty-four questions, we barely eked out four correct answers. Mom kept saying, "And we're teachers, we should know this stuff." To which I  replied, "I taught fourth grade and middle school science, not a lot of Star Spangled information embedded in those two fields."

We moved on to U.S. government. Our ego sails were filled on this one. We got all but two correct and we gave ourselves half points on both of them because we are teachers scoring our own test. One of the questions stunned me, however. The question was, "How many members are in the U.S. House of Representatives?" Without missing a beat, my mother replies, "435" and by Gumby, she was right. This is coming from someone who can't tell me if she just ate a cookie two seconds ago, despite the crumbs on her sweater and the napkin in her lap. I guess years of very active participation in politics etched information deeply into her brain. I'm afraid the only fact that will be etched in my brain will be the color of a Cheetoh.

We finished our puzzle challenge with general U.S. trivia. We gave ourselves a D+ on this one and that was probably grading on the curve. We realized we only knew the name of one city in Vermont. Wrong answer, anyway. We let our minds sketch the shorelines of different states so we could answer the question about which state has the most shoreline miles. It is Alaska, one point for us. Overall, we patted ourselves on the back for at least attempting to answer each question. Teachers know how to encourage, even if it is just ourselves.

Here is your U.S. Flag trivia question for the day. "Upon the admission of a new state to the union, when is a new star added to the flag?" (see below for the correct answer and give yourself a point, no matter the answer)

As per the Flag Act of 1818, a new star is added on the
 4th of July following the date of the state's admission.