“Good night, Molly.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Will you tell me a story?”
“Hmm. A story, huh? What kind of story do you want to hear?”
“I want a story about Rollie!”
“Rollie? Which one is Rollie?"
“MOM! You know!”
Oh yes – your little Rhinoceros. Ok – let’s see…”
Once upon a time, there was Rhinoceros by the name of Rollie. Rollie lived in the Nama Karoo region of South Africa.
“Nama Karoo? You made that up.”
“Dear, all my stories are made up but the Nama Karoo is real. It’s one of the only places left in the world with wild Rhinoceros.”
“OK”
Rollie lived in the Nama Karoo. It was so hot and dry, that sometimes he had to walk for miles and miles, just to get a drink of water. As he walked, Rollie met a lot of other creatures, but he had a very difficult time remembering their names.
Sometimes this got quite embarrassing, because after he had met someone two or three times, he felt he really should be able to remember their name.
One night, as he was standing very still and taking a long nap, a Cape Eagle Owl flew up and landed on his back and said, ‘Hello Rollie!’
But Rollie couldn’t remember his name. ‘I’m sorry’, Rollie said. ‘I should know your name, but I just can’t remember.’
‘Who Whooo!’ said the owl. ‘What you need is mnemonics!’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Rollie.
Well, the owl went on to explain that a mnemonic is a memory-jogger. A little trick to help you remember something when you have trouble remembering it. The Owl (whose name was Perseus, by the way) told Rollie that when he meets someone new and hears their name, he should put their name in his Name Library.
“What’s that?”
“Good question, little one. Rollie asked the very same thing. Keep listening.’
A Name Library, the owl said, it a place to keep all the names you know. It’s a row of bookcases for every letter of the alphabet, stretching from left to right in your mind. If you meet a David, he goes on the ‘D’ bookcase, on the ‘a’ shelf, which are the first two letters in David. Now when you see David again, you can picture him sitting on a low shelf somewhere toward the left end of the Library.
On the other hand, if you meet a Tyler, then you put his name in the ‘T’ bookcase, way up on the shelf for ‘y’. Rollie thought this was a very good idea, and when Perseus told Rollie his name again, Rollie put his name on the ‘P’ bookcase, down on the ‘e’ shelf, right next to his friends Peter and Percival. In fact, thought Rollie, if I think of them all as friends together, I’ll be able to remember all three!
And he never forgot Perseus’ name again.
The end.
A Geocache Notification Form has been filed with the Marathon County Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Department.