Useless facts

“Name our nation’s first secretary of state,” said Brenda Tremblay (“trom-blay;” as in “trombone), morning host at WXXI, the classical music radio-station out of Rochester (NY) I listen to.
“Thomas Jefferson,” I snapped.
“Stay tuned and Garrison will tell you in our next ‘Writer’s Almanac’.”
“We’ll see if I’m right,” I said. I majored in History in college, and questions like that sound like one of those useless facts I had to know for exams.
“It was on this day in 1789” (Wednesday, July 27th) “that the United States Department of Foreign Affairs was created,” Garrison began.
It was later renamed the Department of State.
“After American independence and the adoption of the Constitution, President Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson as the first secretary of state.”
“How ‘bout dat!” I gloated. “Toy not with The Keed!”
I wasn’t sure — college was 50 years ago. But it’s a useless fact forever etched in my brain.
Our History Department had three professors. Two were good = analytical. The other obsessed with useless facts. That was Dr. Frieda A. Gillette, who we nicknamed by her initials: F-A-G.
FAG was an old biddy who knew it all. She could give the complete lineage of the English kings.
We used to say the reason she could was because she was so old she lived through every one.
She also was obsessed with Indian trails. So we concluded she was there when they were laid down.
One time a student wondered what the lineage of English kings had to do with Far Eastern history. It was a test question.
Well, she knew it, so her Far Eastern students had to know it too.

The painting.

Another time a student asked where in the text was the name of Napoleon’s horse.
“Dr. Gillette, you said everything would be in the text.”
“Now clahss,” she solemnly intoned. “Look on page 1064 of the text and you will see a picture of the painting of Napoleon on his horse ‘Marengo’. There’s your answer.”
Google the question and you get a slew of answers. Napoleon had many horses. “Marengo” was his favorite.
Her favorite student was a guy named Clyde Young; I think from the class before me: 1965, I’m ’66.
We concluded Clyde had a photographic memory = that he photographed a page in his mind, and could thereafter spit back all the useless facts contained therein, as if reading his photograph.
Clyde died not long after graduating; I forget why.
I avoided FAG; I majored in the two good professors, one of whom counseled me to become a scholar.
I didn’t. After four years of college I had enough. Scholarly pursuit seemed like belly-button picking. Every theory I proposed had an equal and opposing theory.
I had a life to live; and many other things were interesting, like cars and especially trains. —I’m a railfan.
But after four years I’m left with facts of little or no importance.
I can still recite the openings lines of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, our first secretary of state.

• My college was Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), about 80 miles south of Rochester.