When I was in the 7th grade in 1984, my geography teacher required us to memorize all of the state capitals. My mom bought me this weird book by Jerry Lucas called Ready, Set, Remember. I immediately loved it, and was able to quickly memorize all 50 state capitals. I am still able to do so to this day, based on the pictures that this book implanted into my brain.
Thirty or so years later, I dug up that book from my parents’ house to show my own kids. I became excited about the state capitals all over again. I also tackled the presidents in order at this time , which I hadn’t done previously, and even taught them to my then 6-year-old daughter who, five years later, can still recall them. Then I had another memorizing lull until the summer of 2019 when I spotted this book in a gift shop:
It really reignited my desire to memorize, and I have been at it since then. I used Nelson Dellis’s pictures, stories, and idea for a few of the things he had in the book, such as the 10 tallest mountain peaks and the 10 most populous countries, but the book was really useful in that it helped me learn how to build a foundation to memorize anything on my own. The Dellis book introduced me to the PAO (Person/Action/Object) system of learning numbers, something that, at first, seemed completely out of reach, but I persevered and this is really what has allowed me to learn the things I want to learn, such as the Periodic Table and the best picture Academy Award winners and their years. I always try to find what other people have created when trying to memorize, but there is not a lot, unless you want to pay for it, so I created my own mnemonics. I will share all of that here as we go along. Posting soon: notes on my most recent memorization of all 196 UN recognized countries’ capitals.