The Town’s Youngest Savant
I’m not an interesting person; in fact, I’m a bit of a bore. Voltaire argued that “[t]he secret of being a bore is to tell everything,” but for me the tell is to say nothing. After years of frustrating attempts at spinning riveting tales, I still struggle mightily to make messages interesting for the listener and silence more than gab gives me comfort. I have always disliked people who thought I was dumb because I didn’t talk much or who thought they were smarter than me or knew how I should act or behave. This often kept me from mingling and housebound from fear of having to say or do the right thing in public. I have always avoided being in groups like a cult of linguists.
Tony was not like me. He was constantly “chatting people up” and entertaining them with stories, long and short, that would keep them laughing and reminded of his “gift of gab” for days. Tony was a savant. He could sort things at blistering speed using one or both hands. He invented an intelligence (IQ) test that required more than simply answering questions that demanded knowledge (i.e., Who discovered America? or How many seeds in a watermelon? What is the cube root of 729?). He could watch a person on television with the sound off and tell if they were lying. He watched a lot of television and was a game show savant. Naming missing letters, remembering old or new stuff, and finding words, phrases, or numbers were “cake” and that is why he didn’t include them in his IQ test. He won millions on Name that Tune by naming hundreds of tunes in one note or less. I could see a missing letter puzzle with one letter in it (e.g., [][][][][][]D or [][] [][][][] [][][][][] [][][][] [][][][]S) and he could complete it (i.e., WHEELED and HE MADE WORDS FROM TURDS) in seconds. Nobody knew how he did it, but everybody in town who witnessed it knew he could do it.
A Few Game Shows That He Mastered
Dough Re Mi
Family Feud
Friend or Foe?
Get Rich Quick
The Game Game
He Said, She Said
Home Shopping Game
It’s Academic
Jumble
Late Night Liars
Name that Tune
Number Please
Pawnography
Professor Yes ‘n’ No
Quiz Kids
Rhyme and Reason
Snap Judgment
Vas o No Vas
Who Said That?