I forget names all the time. But I remember details of a course I took in 1956. Things that even the guy who taught it didn’t recall, like how marks were assigned. He went round the class and asked each of us to assign ourselves a grade. He accepted all but one. The girl who said she deserved a D. He agreed with the self-assessment but said that if she got a D she wouldn’t graduate and gave her a C. And I still remember her name.
But more to the point I remembered the topics we covered, the texts we used and which chapters. When I was getting ready to move a couple years ago, I discovered my notebook from the course and discovered that the memories were accurate.
I might add that that course determined my career.
I grew up in the '70s and '80s and the TV was on alot in my home. My head is filled with commercial jingles and lines of dialogue from sitcoms, movies, etc. To a surprising degree. Remember the 1990’s show “Dream On” where the action was frequently interrupted by a (typically black and white) film clip from an old TV show or movie, reflecting the emotions of the protagonist? I kinda have that going myself. I frequently remember related ideas from this “database” of old stuff and relate it to what I’m experiencing right now. But it’s not like I can share it with anyone or they’d think I’m crazy.
My kid is now 15 and spends a lot of his day viewing memes. He’s filling up his mind too, but with memes. Good for him; at least he gets to choose what he’s getting, unlike me, who had to watch whatever happened to be on the TV.
Meanwhile I struggle to remember a person’s name just after their introduction. True, I only hear it once and at the very start of a huge data dump (typically) so I’ve made it a habit to not be embarrassed to ask “please, tell me your name again.” Then I forget it the second time.
It’s a mystery to me that my brain refuses to store certain things of semi-importance while stuff of equal value is readily recalled.
Why is it that I know reflexively that intracytoplasmic inclusions due to immunoglobulin accumulations are called Russell bodies, but constantly forget that the same type of inclusions that appear to be intranuclear are Dutcher bodies? I even once had an adopted dog whose original name was “Dutcher”, so I should remember it easily.
Oh, and I can still recite “Jabberwocky” from memory.
Slithy! I can only do about a quarter of it, and not super accurately. But I can sing the “F troop” theme song accurately (at least as far as the words go). So your brain remembers classier stuff than mine.
Every time someone asks my phone number, I have to stop and think about it, and I still usually dig out my wallet to check my secret cheat-card to make sure I got it right. Why would I have occasion to memorize my own phone number? I never call myself.
But I still remember both of my childhood phone numbers. But none of the phone numbers I’ve had between then and now.
And I can still recite Jabberwocky.
Who here memorized The Walrus And The Carpenter, or even The Hunting Of The Snark?
I kept my childhood phone number. We’ve had it since the Kennedy administration. Still a landline too. That’s the ONLY reason I remember it. I have no clue what my office number is.
I remember all my grade school friends’ childhood phone numbers. With the names of the extensions (yeah, I’m… vintage).
Which is really useless. Those are all old landlines.
I’m looking up who has BLueridge 8-8080 now. Wondering if I should call whoever has it… but that’d be weird for them, but fun for me, but disturbing, but still, annnnd, I can’t anyhow. It’s now the FAX number of a law firm. ::sigh::
Fun fact:
That phone number took forEVer on a dial phone, and you waited as the dial clicked back from those 0s and 8s…
BUT, as soon as touch tone keypads came along… 2588080, all on the center keys clickclickclick!
I just wanted to pop in and say, after reading this poem, that it is beautiful! I’ve preferred rhyming verse, but “Forgetfulness” truly uses words and images in a lovely fashion. Never heard of the author, but I think I’m going to have to look him up.
Excuse me, but while you were singing that, you drove right past the grocery store, and now you’re going to get home without those tomatoes you were supposed to get.
Just because of you guys, I googled my child home phone number. I even managed to remember what the area code was because we didn’t have them back then.
It came up with Mom’s name, that she lived in her current state and then suggested our address as an additional contact.
Hopefully I will remember to be outraged in the morning because I will have slept.
But I have cleverly posted this and will hopefully remember to look here while looking for a recipe for split pea soup.
