Things you memorized as a kid and still remember today.

[wilkeliza]

A lot but the biggest one is my grandma's phone number. It was my emergency contact so it was drilled into my head. I don't know what I'll go through when that number is no longer hers. It has been that way for over 30 years.

 

[DisneyOma]

We had to memorize a soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade. That was 4 decades ago. I now work with 9th graders who also study good old R&J. When they read it aloud in class, I get to do my soliloquy. Then I tell them I learned it when I was their age. They are either impressed or horrified

 

[Kellykins1218]

Greek alphabet
Psalm 100
Alphabet in sign language
The Preamble thanks to Schoolhouse Rock

 

[Magpie]

Assorted poems. E. B. Yeats, e. e. cummings, Lewis Carroll, William Blake, Edgar Allan Poe (but actually not "The Raven", instead I chose "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells")...

It wasn't an assignment, it was just for fun, and because I like the way they sound.

Turning and turning in a widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea.
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee.

 

[holden]

The French National Anthem (thanks to French class).

Most recent memorization...the entire show of Hamilton.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

I still know all of the words to "Who Nibbles the Moon," a poem I memorized in Grade 1 for our oratory contest. (I was runner-up and still have the patch I won.)

MRS. VANDERTAMP (a mnemonic for memorizing the irregular French verbs)

In high school, one English teacher who I had for Grade 9 and 10, had us memorize a passage from Shakespeare each year. I still remember most of the words to one of the soliloquies.

For drama, we had to memorize and then illustrate proper enunciation using, "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines." (Hamlet)

FOIL (first, outside, inside, last) for solving algebraic equations.

Hopefully I learned more than just those few things over the course of my education. I mean, I can read and write and do basic math. I know some explorers and the scientific method and can list the elements and principles of art, so I figure I'm not doing too badly.

 

[DopeyDame]

LOL! When I saw the headline, the thing that first popped to my mind is "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, on a sesame seed bun"

Clearly I'm not as classy as some of you

 

[MIGrandma]

All of the President's names, in order, from Washington to Nixon. Nixon was President when I was in 8th grade, and memorizing the names and reciting them out loud was our end of the year final exam.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Many of the same things people listed above - the Preamble (and first couple of lines to other documents/speeches), a number of digits of Pi, the Greek Alphabet, a ton of School House Rock songs, etc.

My grandmother was big on having us memorize poems (she'd bribe us with candy). The first one I remember learning was:

I had a little tea party
This afternoon at three.
'Twas very small,
Three guests in all -
Just I, myself, and me.

Myself ate up the sandwiches,
While I drank up the tea.
'Twas also I who ate the pie
And passed the cake to me.

I can also still do "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ('Twas the night before Christmas...) that I learned for her, and "the Man Without a Country" that I had to memorize for 8th grade English class.

And, for no reason I can explain, other than that I read it a lot and became amused that I could do it, so kept practicing - the entire first chapter of "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing".

 

[L&Lfan]

The big 3 Catholic Prayers:
Our Father
Hail Mary
Glory Be

Act of Contrition (for First Penance)

7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit (for Confirmation)

Multiplication Tables

Big Mac jingle

Lyrics to many TV themes of the '60s and '70s

For some strange reason I can recite the Evil Queen's transformation spell (in Lucille La Verne's voice)

Lyrics to the Honeybees' "You Need Us" from Gilligan's Island

And so much other random stuff from pop culture....

 

[because]

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears
A world of hope and a world of fears
There's so much that we share, that its time we're aware
It's a small world after all.

It's a small world after all.....

50 years later, that ear worm still hangs on every time I hear it.

 

[AppleDumpling]

Assorted facts from school, prayers, and the phone numbers of my best friends growing up (long before speed dial or cell phones).

Several poems by AA Milne, that my mother read to me, from the book, The World of Christopher Robin. Two of my favorites were "Sneezles" and "Disobedience" (James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree).

 

[Liberty Belle]

1) The Lord's Prayer
2) Miranda rights. (Watched too many episodes of Dragnet and Adam 12)


A co-worker:
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution......Thanks to School House Rock.

Yep, all those. I still know several School House Rock songs by heart.

Let's see, what else:

My very educated mother just served us nine pickles (which we've adjusted to her now serving us an undetermined amount of nachos).

I remember in first grade our teacher making us remember the Earth is approximately 93,000,000 miles from the sun. I was shocked a few years ago when it was the million dollar question on WWTBAM.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Thought of another:

My zip code from when I was young - 49085. I remember in third grade making up "forty, ninety, ohty, eighty, fivety" to remember it. lol

 

[Squirlz]

I can remember our phone number and license plate numbers from when I was in grade school, but I still can't remember my Mother's birthday!

 

[pryncess527]

The books of the bible, both Testaments. I won a coin for doing the New Testament books faster than anyone in my grade

How to conjugate "good" in Latin. It's about the only Latin I remember
State capitols

Gettysburg address and preambles to Declaration of Indep. and Constitution.

All the words to Ice, Ice Baby & Baby Got Back

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Naughty Elephants Squit Water

( North, East , South, West )

Or Never Eat Shredded Wheat!

 

[Branflakes]

This debuted a year after I was born.

My Bologna has a first name,
It's O-S-C-A-R.
My bologna has a second name,
It's M-A-Y-E-R.
Oh I love to eat it everyday,
And if you ask me why say,
Cause' Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A!!!!

 

[RedAngie]

As long as we're mentioning food jingles:

Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs?
Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks
Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox
Love hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
The dog kids love to bite

(Would this commercial be allowed today? Fat kids....sissy kids....)

 

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