Road Apples
Nov. 20, 2006

Remember old Whatshisname? Me either.

By Tim Sanders

There are two kinds of memory. One kind allows a person to remember important things that can facilitate his social interactions and make his life easier. The other kind only allows a him to remember really stupid things that have absolutely no practical application at all. I have that second kind of memory. I can remember each and every line of the poem "Old Ironsides," which I learned in 10th grade, and I can remember that the Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066. I even remember that the value of pi, rounded off, is 3.1416. I’m sure you can see just how valuable a memory like that is:


NURSE: "This is important, Mr. Sanders. When did you have your last pneumonia shot?"

ME: "If it’s not 1066, December 7, 1941, or 3.1416, I can’t help you. I can recite ‘Old Ironsides,’ though."


My wife is really good at remembering dates. She gets it from her mother, who actually knows birthdays of people she has never even met. And I don’t mean important people, just regular people. I know, I’ve tested her, and it’s scary. Imagine a man, his wife and her mother driving to Gadsden for dinner. Since you’re imagining, imagine that one of them is my mother-in-law, Lola. The other two you can figure out for yourself:


LOLA: "Is this the 20th or the 21st?

MARILYN: "It’s the 21st."

LOLA: "Then it’s LeAnn’s birthday?"

MARILYN: "Who’s LeAnn?"

LOLA: "She’s the Sprague’s daughter. They go to our church. LeAnn lives in Memphis."

MARILYN: "How would you know her birthday?"

LOLA: "November 21st is the same day your third cousin Margaret was born. She’s the one that got her thumb caught in that bowling ball and had to go to Rome and have it removed."

MARILYN: "I didn’t know Margaret had her thumb removed."

LOLA: "Not her thumb, the bowling ball. They used a diamond saw. She was pregnant at the time, and was worried her baby would be marked because of it, but little Lane turned out just fine."

ME (trying to throw a monkey wrench into the conversation): "When was little Lane born?"

LOLA: "July 1st. 1956. Exactly seven years and seven days after Marilyn was born. One of his boys married a woman who was born on July 5th, and they had a son who was born on July 5th, too. Lane’s wife was a Henshaw girl from over at Crossville. Andrea Henshaw."

ME (hoping to catch her with a curve ball): "When was Andrea born?"

LOLA: "October 9, 1974! There were four Henshaw girls, and each and every one of them was born in October. Andrea was the last, and her daddy just knew she was going to be a boy. He would have called her Andy if she had been."

ME: "AARGH!"
 

I remember my wife’s birthday, my sons’ birthdays, and my own. That is all a person should be expected to know.

People like Marilyn and her mother don’t just remember birthdays, either. They always recognize faces, and always put the right names with them. I, on the other hand, don’t. When somebody tells me his name is Bob, and that’s a name that’s really easy to remember, I never contradict him. But I know he’s dead wrong. A name like Poindexter I would remember, but not Bob. There was a girl in the small Michigan town where I was raised named Ermine Featherly. She was not in my grade at school, and there was nothing particularly striking about her looks. I barely knew her, but I do know that the name has stuck with me. It falls so trippingly off the tongue. But most names give me fits.

Let’s say I’m at a wedding reception, for example, and a gentleman walks toward me with his hand extended, a big grin on his face. Chances are I won’t remember who he is, or will wonder if indeed I know him at all. That always leaves me in a quandary. Do I take his hand firmly in mine and tell him I’m so glad to see him again, running the risk that he’s an unsuspecting cousin of the groom’s from Milwaukee who doesn’t know me from Adam’s house cat, and was just reaching for one of those little sausage rolls on the snack table? Or do I play it safe and tell him not to come any closer because the bean dip has been repeating on me?

And there is always that uncomfortable occasion when somebody I don’t recognize approaches me on a downtown street and says, "Hi, Tim." I know I’ve seen this fellow before, but as to his identity, I draw a blank. Oh sure, I could try a diversionary tactic: "I’ve dropped my contact lens. Oh God, I’m blind as a mole!" But that is risky, and could result in me and a guy I don’t really know crawling around on the sidewalk together looking for a nonexistent contact. My best shot is to do a little fishing, and ask him about his family. That’s the kind of question that elicits personal information which is usually just loaded with clues to the person’s identity. But even that tactic is not foolproof. I used it once, several years ago, and learned that the man I was speaking to had just finalized his divorce a week earlier. He broke into tears when I inquired after his lovely wife and children. He had no children, and his lovely ex-wife was honeymooning in Nevada with his best fishing buddy.

The third kind of name identification problem is often the most embarrassing. It goes like this:

A lady I’ve known for years stops to talk to me at a funeral. I know her husband, and her family, and I know her name as well as my own, except for the fact that it has slipped my mind right now, and I can’t think of it. I continue to talk, hoping her name will pop into my head so that I can at least call her by that name when I say goodbye. Unfortunately another acquaintance approaches, wearing the kind of questioning look that tells me he’s never met the lady I’m talking to, and would like to be introduced. Here are my options:


1. "Earl, this is Fred Spacklemeyer’s lovely wife ... uh–HACK, COUGH, COUGH, COUGH–I think I–HORNK–swallowed my gum–SPUTTER, SPUTTER, COUGH!"

2. "Earl, I’d like you to meet–OMIGOSH, I DO BELIEVE I JUST SAW THE CASKET SHAKE!"

3. "Did you two know that when King Harold met William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he forgot William’s name and called him Irene? Talk about embarrassing. William lopped Harold’s head off! And speaking of losing your head and forgetting names ..."


I suspect that there was a moral to this little memory lesson, but I’ve already forgotten it.