Our lives are filled with times and places. some things we remember as events only, we have a vague recollection of when they happened and where, but we remember the event. Some events are so incredible that we remember nearly everything about them. You'll see what I mean when we get there.
- The President's been shot - The easy one gets out of the way. National figures weather entertainers or politicians appear to tie us together with a common link of knowledge. I still remember exactly where I was when The President was shot. At this time the President was Ronald Reagan. I was in the school choir room. Class had started and suddenly on the intercom someone had put the radio on. With no announcement for attention the static transmission told the school that the President had been shot. Our teacher stopped class and told us about when he was young and president Kennedy had been shot. He told us it is very likely we will never forget this moment. In my case he was right.
- Giant mistakes - There I was at the very BEST part of a vacation the front part where you are driving to your destination. Everything is ahead of you and it's all terrific. You are so excited to get to where you are going that you sometimes loose track of simple things around you. In my case what I lost track of was the fact that the gas pump was still in it's delivery position at my fuel port. I had gone inside to get some convenience store crap and came out, got in the car and took off. My head was full of anticipation of the events to come. Then I heard a loud crack as I pulled away. It wasn't exactly a crunch like in an accident, but just more of a pop. I looked in the rear view to see that I had grown a black rubber tail from the gas pump hose. OH CRAP! I thought. I just knew this was going to cast a pallor on the whole vacation. I took the pump back to the station and they told me it happens all the time, no problem. I never forgot it.
- Marriage / Proposal - I barely need to say anything about this. Who doesn't remember this? If you don't remember this event, then I'm not sure what to think. Unless it never happened to you, but that's covered later.
- You're Fired! - Ahh that time when your company has decided to vote you off the island. You get flush, you get panicky, there is a sudden feeling of betrayal. It all comes into play. You always remember when you get fired and where you were. You may forget about the job and everything else about it, but you will probably never forget the actual getting let go.
- Car Accidents - That shot of adrenaline, that sudden slow motion feeling before you see what is happening. Finally, the inevitable crunch of metal on metal. You always remember the car accidents you can remember. The weird thing is, if the accident was bad enough, you forget all of it. You won't get back a thing. I think it's your brain saving you from an endless loop of your own personal fail video in your head.
- Sudden disasters - Like car accidents and Presidential shootings rolled into one, a sufficient large scale disaster will impress in your mind like few things will. the 911 terrorist attacks are set in my memory, hurricane Katrina the same. The interesting thing here of course is how important the disaster in question is to you. For example the earthquake in China that happened several years ago or the terrorist attack in Kenya don't register with me, but I'm sure that people in those areas remember it like it was yesterday.
- I nearly died! - any time you come close enough to the grim reaper to shake his hand you are going to remember the event because it was nearly your last. (I'm assuming the grim reaper is a he, but honestly you can't really tell sex from bones very easily so it could be a woman). I very much remember from my childhood where and when I was the 2 times I nearly drowned. I was never a good swimmer and me and water aren't the closest of pals. I also remember very vividly when I swallowed a pot-sticker down the windpipe and watched as people all around me were asking if I was o.k. I was clearly not and I was shaking my head and offering the international choking signal to that effect (hands on throat looking like you are choking yourself). Finally I arched my back and was able to get just a bit of air down my windpipe and blow the obstruction out. I was close enough that I saw the edges of my vision blacking out. Had any of those events played out to their logical conclusion and you wouldn't have this fantastic blog to read every so often. yeah, yeah, shut it.
- First Kiss - As memorable as the marriage/proposal but it's different. The first real kiss that involves both passion and physical contact is in some ways a defining transition from being a child to being a teenager. It makes you feel somewhat grownup. It is the kind of thing that when it happens, you replay it over and over in your head and wonder if the other person involved felt like it was as magical as you did. It's pretty memorable.
- That one time when you were young and you felt bad - For some reason we replay events in our head from when we were young and it seems that we all have a few scenes from our childhood where we feel like we were horribly wronged. Because we are kids we don't really have a setting on our emotions that allow us to control the amount of feeling an event deserves. In my case, I remember at one point asking my mom if I could have some books from the weekly reader. The weekly reader was a 2 page book catalog that sold books. I couldn't tell you if they were a good deal or not, I was a kid and only knew that I liked books. I would often like to get Dynamite magazine and a few other books. Well at this time, mom said no. I knew better than to nag about a reversal in decision, no means no. Then about 2 weeks later, well after the deadline, mom saw the weekly reader sitting in my room and asked if I wanted to get any books. I felt particularly bad about that as a kid. It felt like somehow the world was combining against me to get my Dynamite magazine. I must have felt bad, I still remember it today. Was it worth remembering? Absolutely not. During the course of my young life I had been rejected in my frivolous requests on numerous occasions as is the wont of any good parent. Yet I still remember it. I'm sure my parents do not and yet I am equally sure that they remember regrets they had in parenting that I have long since forgotten. It's kind of the way it goes. None of it is worth remembering and none of it is worth holding on to.
- The time when you were totally there except you weren't - This one is strange. Apparently at certain times, our brains will not only lie to us, but they will actually create memories where they didn't exist. For example, if you go on a movie binge with friends and you see several movies over the course of several nights in a row, your brain will put you at any number of shows with those friends in the future. Later, your friends may have seen a movie without you but you swear that you saw it with them. You actually recall seeing it with them and you are sure it happened. It didn't. Any repetitive task that you usually do but didn't do once, your brain will try to fill in that memory so you don't need to worry about it. This is how we forget if we closed the garage door or locked our car. Our brain tells us we did, or didn't and we aren't sure which one is true. We go back to verify and only then do we actually know which memory is correct. And yet eyewitness testimony is the gold standard of evidence in US courts of law. no matter how goofy our brains are.
Well, That's it. I don't recall writing this blog post before, but I might have. If I did, please forgive me. If I didn't. Thank goodness! See ya in another couple of weeks.
