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Remembering
Memory
“Thanks for the Whatchamacallits.”
- Bob Hope
by Brewster Hudspeth |
A
grafitto popular in the 60s said something like: “Time is nature’s way of insuring
that everything doesn’t happen at once.” If that’s true (and who’s foolish enough
to argue with a truism?) then what part of nature’s plan is memory?
Or to ask a more important question - why do we remember what we do? Why is it
we can remember worthless trivia about celebrities while important things (sometimes
life-saving things) go right through our brains like hot knives go through that
yellow stuff you put on toast?
Sometime in the mid 1970s (when everyone
was convinced that the world would soon be coming to an end) Trivial Pursuit appeared.
This was a board game that allowed the players to shamelessly (nay, proudly) expose
all the scrapings of the barrel bottoms of their memories. The game was probably
the brainchild of “professional students” sitting around the student union making
tomato soup from hot water and catsup. Don’t laugh - it was pretty good. For those
who don’t remember professional students, they were an subgroup (now extinct)
that existed when college tuition was low enough to permit their existence.
Trivial Pursuit (not to be confused with the short-lived feminine facial
hair removal product called Trivial Hirsute) caught on with an entire generation
of Americans. This generation drank deep from the font of all things trivial -
in other words - they had watched a lot of television in their youth. Did Trivial
Pursuit disappear with other frivolities of the 70s? - not on your life. It has
lived-long and prospered; spawning new editions for new generations that overvalue
worthless facts. It’s even been broken down into various decades.
For
some reason cowboy’s horse’s names seemed to be 20% of the questions of TP’s first
edition. Why did the clean slates of healthy pink brain cells record that Buttermilk
was Dale Evans horse. Did children think that they might fall down a mineshaft
and need to call Dale’s horse? No. The real reason was that remembering Buttermilk
- or Topper or Diablo - was much easier than remembering 7 x 9 is (whatever it
is) and that Buttermilk wouldn’t be on the test. |
Learning
Lessons Unlike
that stuff that Will Rodgers said to buy because they weren’t making more of it
- memories are made all the time. Everyday. Memories are essential for learning.
Some things we learn the first time and some things we have to have beaten into
our heads. Take hot skillet handles for instance - or sleeping dogs - or Chinese
mustard. Mustard in Chinese restaurants should not be used on hot dogs and NEVER
slathered on egg rolls like one would do with weak “American-style” mustard. We
interviewed several people at the Texas State School for the Blind and each one
agreed that the “Chinese mustard lesson” was one that they’ll long remember.
Editors note: Chinese mustard headaches register 7.2 on Moe’s Scale of
Headaches. For comparison - an “ice-cream headache” is a mere 5.6. |
Those
Crazy Little Things Called Mnemonic Devices
A mnemonic device is a trick to aid in remembering. A fine example (because it’s
the only one I can remember) for a mnemonic device is “HOMES.” To most of us they
are things that the homeless are without. But for the millions of people (especially
ship captains) whose lives depend on knowing the names of the Great Lakes, remembering
HOMES will enable them to recall (almost) instantly that the lakes are Huron,
Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. (Unless they need them in order in which
case the words to remember would be OEHMS. (East to west) or SMHEO (west to east).
It’s great to have mnemonic devices - and it would be even greater if
there was one to help us remember how to spell mnemonic. It’s the only English
word to have a silent em - and I hope it stays that way. You might notice that
the word vacuum is unique as well. It’s the only word in English with double u’s.
And if you don’t already have enough to remember you may also want to remember
that vacuums are pneumatic - not mnemonic.
A few years ago there was
a brave attempt to make mnemonic a household word (like vacuum). It was the title
of a sci-fi movie where the hero was named “Johnny Mnemonic.” It was probably
a good laugh in Hollywood, after Johnny Guitar, Johnny Eager and Johnny Dangerously
but it proved to be quite forgettable with the public despite some fine facial
grimacing by the popular actor what’s-his-name.
While some devices like
HOMES are acronyms, others are rhymes. One of the more famous maritime rhymes
is: “Red sky at morning- sailor take warning! Red sky at night - let’s go out
for a bite.” Or should that be “sailor’s delight? I didn’t say it was famous for
making sense.
And then there’s the one rhyme every boy scout remembers
(besides the old man from Nantucket). Identifying the poisonous Coral snake from
the harmless Scarlet King snake can be stressful - even to snake parents. While
both have colorful bands of red, black and yellow, identification is made simple
by remembering which bands touch. “Red and Black - friend of Jack.” “Red and Yellow
- let’s get the hell out of here!” Well, that’s how I remember it, anyway.
Memory
and memory loss is fast becoming a non-joking matter. Like LSD “flashbacks",
millions of baby boomers are complaining about experiencing involuntary hesitation
when answering questions. Many boomers laugh it off as “thoughts passing through
dead cells.” But it shouldn’t be too long before the “Trivial Generation” starts
inappropriately blurting out “Buttermilk!, Shemp! and Jan Murray! ” to answer
simple questions like the time of day.
A troubling memory-related phenomenon
that everyone has experienced from time to time is a jingle or song that keeps
replaying over and over in one’s mind. The most annoying example I can think of
is “That’s the Way (un-huh, un-huh) I Like It” by K. C. and the Sunshine Band.
This is called (un-huh, un-huh) an “ear worm” (un-huh, un-huh). And the reason
(un-huh, un-huh) for the constant replaying in our mind is that we’re unconsciously
waiting (un-huh, un-huh) for the song to end. “Please God, (un-huh, un-huh) make
it end!” Experts say that we merely have to play the song to completion, and our
brains will close the book on that particular tune and then we can move on to
something else - like maybe Barry Manilow’s Copa Cabana.
©
John Troesser
"They
shoe horses, don't they?" July
19, 2004 |
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