Bob’s Corner
Losing it
From our weekly issue dated July 21, 2010
People (including me) joke about “losing our memory“ as we become older, and I“m here to tell you that it“s not funny. After all, how many times am I supposed to enter a room and forget why I“m there“
Besides that, losing my memory reminds me of losing my car keys, cell phone, wallet and eyeglasses. Not always at the same time. Well, not always.
Forgetting why you are somewhere is not the same as simply being inattentive. For example, those people who drive with their turn signals on, although eventually they turn them off. For example, on Interstate 5 near Grants Pass I was behind a guy who was signaling for a right turn. He signaled and he signaled. And he did turn right. In Portland.
But returning to “losing our memory,“ maybe most embarrassing and frustrating is making a telephone call, and then realizing when someone answers that (1) You have no idea who they are, and (2) Even if you knew who they are, you can“t remember why you phoned them. Makes for interesting conversations though.
What“s fun, after entering a room and having no idea why you“re there, is deciding to try a memory jogger. So you stand there and look around hopefully. Maybe you“ll see something that will spark your brain. When that doesn“t trigger the desired result, you leave the room with the idea that if you return to your original point of departure, you will recall whatever. Unfortunately, it“s often the case that you can“t remember where you started from anyway.
And why is it that I can remember kindergarten and Mrs. Schaeffer at Chesterton Elementary School in the Linda Vista section of San Diego, and my best friends: Chris, Murray, Bobby, Esther and Joey — but now I can“t dredge up what I was told to buy at a grocery store five minutes later while I“m wandering the aisles. Why“
The reason, I am sometimes told, is that I don“t listen closely. There“s probably some validity to that. Still, I blame a clogged brain. After all, other than sports statistics, I“ve been cramming it with every bit of flotsam and jetsam that comes my way for the past 66 years. So it“s like having a storeroom into which you place every bit of scrap lumber, broken tools, old books, ancient magazines (the ones you find to read in medical office waiting rooms), boxes of worn-out clothing, odds and ends, this and that, and junk and stuff.
Therefore, when you want to think of a current subject, such as why are you in your car getting ready to drive somewhere (“), you have to sort through all that debris in your storeroom. No wonder we become lost, memory-wise or in a store or on a highway: There“s simply too much information for us to process rapidly.
That“s my story, and I“m sticking to it.
Actually, I was going to write about some other topic this issue, but I forgot what it was.
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