Thursday, February 17, 2022

Forgotten memories

The only searching was for this image
My father in law says that the reason we remember less as we get older is that we have more to remember.  That's probably true.  I find there are many things I didn't think I'd ever forget that I find myself forgetting. 

Sometimes there were important things.  Most often they are details of things I remember, but the details are slipping.  Many are just the things I somehow knew or heard or experienced but that never really rose to the occasion of focus in my life.  Those things that are just part of the zillion things you'll come across in a few decades of living.

That came to my mind when my son came home after a day out on business.  He was with his fiancée, and they were meeting with people about business ventures they are investing in. While out, they visited a record store and picked up a couple of used vinyls .  My boys have learned that old vinyl records bring a richness to the sound that neither CDs nor digital can equal (I have the same opinion about film versus digital, but that's another story). 

I looked to see what they purchased and I saw a record by Emerson, Like & Palmer.  Now I'd lie if I said I knew more about them than their names.  I might know some of their songs.  It wouldn't surprise me if I heard a couple and recognized them.  But fact is, I just remember the name.  

But what a memory rush it was.  I couldn't put my finger on the time in my life, but I feel their name must have been connected to my younger days in elementary school, c. early 1970s.  I don't know.  I didn't want to look or Google or anything.  No cheating.  I just let my memories do the job. 

A group I knew of but couldn't tell you anything about.  A group's name I  haven't heard uttered in possibly forty years.  But what memories it brought.  If I can't tell you much about EL&P, I could spend the next hour talking about all the accompanying memories that came back with that one group's name. 

That, I think, is a pretty awesome part of the human capacity for memory.  

Shameless boast of my son and his lovely fiancée for their 1st Valentine's



8 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yes he is. We started thinking he would do well to pursue this on more serious grounds shortly after we met her.

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    2. And she's a lucky lady - he totally spoiled her on Valentine's Day. ;)

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    3. Yes. He does spoil her, but she also spoils him. I tell them not to worry, a few years of marriage will take care of that. :)

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  2. A group I knew of but couldn't tell you anything about.

    Same deal here, but I'd have guessed mid-70's. I'm looking at their discography and I recognize nothing.

    What bothers me more is forgetting chronologies, recalling a name but being unable to recall where I knew them, and forgetting unused skills.

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    1. This might sound goofy, but some years ago I took out an Excel doc and created a timeline of my life. When something came to mind I would track down when it happened and put it in my timeline and compare to just how accurate my memories were. I was actually shocked how often my memories were right. But there were times I missed when things happened, or just couldn't remember until I tracked the events down.

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  3. Music is tied to memory.

    But yeah, like a filing cabinet I've noticed with memory it seems to take longer to dig through all the mess as you keep stuffing more in there.

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    Replies
    1. Actually, more like my filing cabinets, which are anything but tidy. So that is about right when it comes to my memories.

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