History. I don't know for sure. I’ve always been fascinated with the origins of numerous things, so when I began to learn about them in history classes, I took it immediately. Never a math wiz, I somehow conceptualize dates and places and times in a memory bank of chronological order and littered with factoids and trivia.
Old Movies. A tie-in to being a history buff led me to enjoying as much entertainment from long ago as I could absorb.
Language/Languages/Linguistics/Etymology/Gramma. My mother began teaching me to read just after I started talking, which blossomed into a natural love for it. An off-shoot was an affinity for crossword puzzles, word-search games, other types of word games, etc. Side note: when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, I was in radio communications. I wish I could remember the reasons today, but I took a Language Aptitude Test when I was about 19 or 20 years old, and learned that I have high ability for learning foreign languages. I took advantage of it and delved into Tagalog, the national language of The Philippines. I took no formal training in it for almost ten years, instead learning on my own and through acquaintances. Fast forward almost ten years after that, and I began learning Spanish, only this time in formal education settings combined with self-learning.
Trivia. When I was about 9 years old, I was exposed to trivia for the first time. I had heard “L.S.M.F.T.” and asked my mother what it meant. My mother, quite cleverly, instead of just telling me the answer, told me to look it up. Being the days before the internet, so I had to dig. I loved the search, and I loved finding the answer too. Along the way, I found dozens of other facts, and each one led to more knowledge about other things too.
