LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOut: Amnesia? I forget what that means... |
by Fay Jacobs |
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa. I can no longer keep up the charade. My fear of being found out and thoroughly embarrassed is giving me the vapors. So I've got to come out of the closet on this one. The truth is, I probably don't know your name.
Now it's true that I've never been formally introduced to many readers of this column, so of course, I'm to be excused for not knowing everyone on a first name basis. But quite frankly, when I see some faces around town, day after day, season after season, and I know we've been introduced a couple of quadrillion times, it makes me positively nuts that I can't remember people's names. And while there's a certain amount of slack to be cut for wait staff I see occasionally, before, during and after a few Cosmopolitans, I'm talking about people I see all the time. People I've had dinner with. Sometimes at my own house. I mean I know who they are, I just can't remember what to call them. Hi, Hon only works if you're in Baltimore. I realize that I'm not the only person in my um...age bracket having this problem. But, by virtue of my mug being in this magazine (okay, I know it's a picture from one of my sporadic thin days, but people on the mailing list from Idaho don't know) a lot of people stop me around town to say hello. I love this, and it's great to meet Letters readers, but the problem is that I never know if I've actually met the people before or they're asking about the dogs, or Bonnie or some issue that I'm in a lather about from real life or reading this column. So half the time, even the initial conversation doesn't give me a clue to the person's age, rank or serial number. Most of the time I just sweat and get stressed out, hoping I can horkle up a name from my hard disk before somebody else arrives and I have to do introductions. Failing an identification, I just stand there like an etiquette moron, while introductions swirl around me. Ah, a name echoes in my brain for about two seconds and then bang! It's sucked up into my cerebellum never to be heard from again. When you think about it, remembering names may be tough everywhere better baby boomers are found, but it's even more challenging here in Rehoboth. I mean out there, in the rest of the world, when you meet couples at an event or party, many of them are heterosexual. Hell, if you can remember that they're Jennifer and Brad or Scarlet and Rhett, it's not hard figuring out which is which. Pairs of Toms and Tims, Sues and Debs, and Gertrudes and Alices are a knottier problem altogether. In fact, some of our longtime Rehoboth couples become proper nouns, like FayandBonnie, SteveandMurray, DanandPeter, etc. Lots of people remember the couple, but who's who gives them fits. Now all this wouldn't be so totally bothersome if it weren't for the latest research which shows that stress causes memory lapses. I can't remember a name so I get stressed so I can't remember a name so I get stressed...it's a chicken/egg thing... And why is it I can remember the complete lyrics to "Jubilation T. Cornpone" from the Broadway bomb L'il Abner or all seven verses of "Wells Fargo Wagon" from Music Man (which, by the way, I start to sing every time I pass that horse and carriage that has been parked outside Cheryl's Wells Fargo Mortgage office on Route One) but I can't remember the name of the maitre d' who gets me the great eight o'clock reservation? I'd take some of those over-the-counter dietary supplements, (actually, my idea of a dietary supplement is fries) but I can't remember which ones to take. It reminds me of the old Carol Burnett gag "Amnesia? I forget what that means." It's like the friend of mine, who, having MS, gets asked by her doctor if she's having memory lapses. She says, "How would I know?" What's a person to do? Short of encouraging people to provide name tags at parties (thank you, thank you, thank you, those who do) there has to be a way to improve my memory. So I turned to a computer search. The dragnet turned up the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute, where I found out that a substance called GHB seems to be all the rage for improving memory, but drat it all, its use is being criminalized nationwide. Next thing I know I'll be in jail and won't be able to remember my lawyers phone number. If carburetor additives aren't the answer, maybe the art of mnemonics is. Whew. If you can remember how to spell that one you're halfway home. Mnemonic systems are mind tools that you use to help remember things. According to lots of people on the internet who want to sell you stuff, by linking names to vivid images you can remember all sorts of complex things. Gee, I'm glad I didn't waste my time trying to remember the list of Republicans Senate Committee Chairs. Now there's information we won't be needing. Anyway, mnemonics works by associating one thing with another. You are advised that associations can be made by visualizing yourself being placed on top of the object you want to remember. Whoa. When it comes to remembering people, this gets into a whole different set of techniques, and, frankly, as a permanently partnered woman, I'm not supposed to be going there. So we move to the next memory tool: the Roman Room Mnemonic. Here, you're supposed to be able to remember whole lists of unstructured things, like a shopping list, by picturing a room that you know very well. Then you assign each item on your shopping list to a thing in, say, your dining room. When you recall the objects in the room, you recall your list. Sure. Not only couldn't I remember my shopping list, but I forgot whether we had six or eight dining room chairs. All it did was give me a headache and I couldn't remember if we had any Excedrin. At this point I started to explain to Bonnie the memory tricks I'd been describing. She suddenly stands up, taps her head, points to her chest, slaps her behind, smiles and points to her crotch. "That's it," I said, "You've finally gone round the bend." "No," she says, "don't you remember the old joke where the woman does these things in the grocery story and when she's asked what she's doing she does the routine again saying, 'Shopping list. A head of lettuce, jug of milk, buns and a little Joy.'" Oy. Let's face it, until scientists come up with some magic solution to this problem, I'm destined to wander through Rehoboth bluffing my way through the name game. Although I did feel somewhat better this afternoon when I had lunch in the Camp Rehoboth courtyard and two different people (one I've known for a while) came up and called me Bonnie. It really did make me feel better. I'm sure they know that Fay is the one who writes the column and Bonnie is the one who yells at her for publishing some of her most embarrassing moments, but making an I.D. these days is just not as easy as it used to be. So at the next party, or beach day or stroll through town, if you say hello and a panicked, quizzical or vacant look crosses my face, help me out here. I promise you, I know who you are. Or I want to know who you are. And you can be sure that I never forget a smile, a kindness or a favor. Now your name may be a different story altogether. Mea Culpa. Fay Jacob's award winning CAMPOut is a regular feature of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 7, June 15, 2001. |