Jefferson City?!

I indulge in a number of useless mind games when, for example, I'm stuck at a light and don't want to sit there fuming, or after I've gone to bed and am waiting for Sleep to grab me by the throat and drag me under. A favorite involves thinking of all the male (or female) names that begin with 'a' (or b or whatever), or all the nouns (apple, applesauce, ant, anteater, aardvark...), or verbs (I ask, answer, anticipate, amble, arch...) Sometimes I'll try to think of all the actors (or actresses) whose first names begin with the chosen letter.

Well, I told you they were useless mind games.

Last night I felt like trying something new, so started running through the state capitals. This is actually something I had down pretty good, once upon a time, except for maybe exotic places like West Virginia and Michigan (Michigan is tricky). But that once upon a time is now some time ago, and I started having trouble fairly early on. Except for New Hampshire I had no trouble with the New England states (with New Hampshire I thought of two possibilities, and one of the two was correct). New York state, no problem (having lived there for a total of five years, I would hope I would know its capital), but Pennsylvania tripped me up. In fact, even when I looked it up later my reaction was really?! Delaware I got wrong. In Maryland I was torn: was it the largest, most well-known city, or was it little ol' Annapolis? (It's the latter.) Virginia, North Carolina were correct educated guesses; for South Carolina I didn't have a clue (in fact, the only city I could name in South Carolina was Charleston, and it ain't that); Florida I got wrong, thinking I was right; Georgia right, Alabama wrong. Good grief!

I turned north after Mississippi (which was one of those it's either this or that situations), and got Tennessee wrong. Still don't know West Virginia, or Michigan, and Ohio was a complete surprise. In Kentucky I at least knew it wasn't Louisville, though I wasn't sure if it was Lexington or the smaller town that lies between the two Ls , a place whose name I couldn't remember, though I'd spent the night in a motel there once, and knew it began with an F (and note that that is the capital).

I do realize that in this day of oh, just look it up on the Internet, this is not of earthshaking importance, being able to rattle off the state capitals. But I am so often appalled by Americans' shaky grasp of geography, and was nonplused to find that I seem to be in lockstep with my countrymen, at least as far as the state capitals in my own country go. And it just seems like something, like the multiplication tables, that we should all know.

So go on, see how well you do, at least with the eastern half of the country. When you look up the correct answers later on the Internet, you may impress yourself, or appall yourself. And you may discover some cities you never even heard of.