You Must Remember This. Or Possibly Not.

By Mike Nettleton 

The other morning at the gym, I was watching the Today show on one of the overhead flat screens they provide. Since my I-pod was pumping Sly and the Family Stone into my headphones (boom, shakka lakka lakka, boom shakka lakka lakka boom), I had to follow the show with the text crawl on the bottom of the screen. Mental multi-tasking as it were. (Since the young thing with the dreadlocks on the elliptical was wearing an interesting new leotard, it moved the degree of difficulty into the stratosphere.)

Featured were a gaggle of Hyperthymesiacs, including the actress Marilu Henner. Hyperthymesia, as it turns out, is the condition of possessing an extremely detailed autobiographical memory. These folks, ranging in age from about 10 through serious geezerage can bring back specific memories the way we…the way we…uh, can’t.

They gave the ten-year old a date, say July 17, 2010 and asked him what day of the week it was. He knew instantly that it was a Tuesday (random example), could tell you what he wore and what he did that day. In great detail.

If hard pressed, and after due deliberation, if someone asked me what I wore yesterday, I could probably come up with “clothes.”

Apparently the Hyperthymesiacs have the ability to instantly retrieve stuff from the part of the brain that stores memories. We all have that stuff stashed in there, but most of us can only bring back small percentages of it. Some of us go in looking for it and need help finding our way back out.

Memory is tricky. While I can memorize my lines for a play I’m performing in and recite them at the proper times, there is almost always one word or short phrase that hovers at the doorway to consciousness and refuses to enter, no matter how often it’s invited. At those times I rely on a mystical and ages old actor’s technique. I say something else. Trying of course to keep it near the topic at hand. For example, if my line, as Christopher in “Shadowlands” is supposed to come out “Congratulations, Jack, you seem to have found a soul mate,” and I couldn’t retrieve “soul mate” from the vaults, it would probably be detrimental to the show if I substituted “female praying mantis.” But, if I inserted “Interesting match,” no one would notice.

Once, when living in Eugene, a man of about my age bustled over to my aisle in the supermarket and started telling stories of things we had done together in college. (Several might still involve outstanding warrants in Jackson County.) As he told the stories, with my bemused wife standing by watching, I simply nodded and smiled. After he wound down, he shook my hand, told me how great it was to see me again and hurried off.  

“Who was that?” My mate asked.

 I shrugged. “No clue.” I admitted.

“Did any or all of those things actually happen?” She reached up for something on the shelf and put it in the cart. 

“Possibly,” I said. “The part where everybody at the party took off their clothes and sang boom shakka lakka lakka, boom shakka lakka lakka, boom, sounded vaguely familiar. 

I Wanna Take You Higher--Sly and the Family Stone  

Memory: If you got it, flog it

By Mike Nettleton

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."  Mark Twain

"I never forget a face. But in your case I'll be glad to make an exception." Groucho Marx. 

They say, as you get along in years you should exercise the part of your brain that controls memory, just to keep things tuned. Since, I'm all about service lets have a little fun. Music is useful to stimulate memory. But we don't always retain what we hear in the content of songs. You task is simple. Match up the number specific and not so specific dates in column A with the artist who used them in a song. 

To make it sweeter, I'll offer a free Kindle or Nook download of any of the books I've written or co-written (THE SHOTGUN KISS, THE HARD KARMA SHUFFLE, THE CRUSHED VELVET MIASMA, DEATH AT DEVIL'S HARBOR, DECEIT AT DEVILS HARBOR, DRUM WARRIOR) to the first two to leave the correct answers in the comments section of this blog. 

Asking friends and family to help is kosher. Using the internet is not. As Gomer Pyle used to say "Shame, Shame, Shame. 

1.  May 10                         A. Bobby Gentry

2.  July 4                           B. U-2                                  

3.  December 23                C.  Credence Clearwater

4.  September 3                 D.  Earth, Wind, Fire

5.  June 3                          E. Chicago

6.  July 4                           F. Four Seasons

7.  April 4                          G.  Van Morrison

8.  June 6                          H.  Elton John

9.  September 21                I.   The Band

10. November 1963             J.   C.W. McCall

11. Late December 1963      K.  James Taylor

12.  December 3                  L.  The Temptations

13.  Christmas Day               M. Sheryl Crow 

Dig out the old 45s, LP's, Cassettes and CDs and have at it.  I'll provide the answers and the winners of the downloads sometime next week. 

Humming Right Along



My son called the other day to remind me that I’m getting old.

No, it wasn’t anything obvious, like “Hi, dad, you’re really an old fart, aren’t you? The conversation went more like this:

“Hey Dad, it’s Rob. How you doin’?

“I’m good. What’s up with you?”

“Listen, I didn’t just call to say hello. I had a favor to ask.”

Uh-oh. Now, in the old days those words would have started my antenna tingling. It usually meant he needed money or wanted to move back in with me for a time. But since he’s middle-aged, has a stable job and makes more money than I ever did, I doubted that was it. Actually, that particular telephone call will probably originate on my end if I tap out on my retirement money.

“A friend of mine has a song running through his head and he can’t remember the name of it. All he’s got is the opening riffs. So I told him I’d call my old Deejay father and hum it to him and he’d come up with it.”

Now it made me proud he had that kind of confidence in me. And old. Okay, okay, it’s true. I started doing radio gigs when we still cued up 45 rpm records by hand (ree-raw, ree, raw) and the turn-tables were kerosene powered. Rob spent his ankle-biter years sacked out on a sleeping bag in the control room of radio stations in small cities while his dad ran the “yawn patrol” morning show.

“Piece of cake.” I lied. After all, what were the chances he could hum it so I could recognize it? Or that the cranny of my brain that regurgitated that kind of information might have an “out to lunch” sign hanging from it.

“Dah, dah, dah, duddah, dah dah dah. Dah, dah, dah, duddah dah, dah, dah.” He hummed.

“Them Changes” I blurted out. “Buddy Miles. Late sixties, early seventies.”

Rob checked it on You-Tube, then whistled. “You’re the best, old man. Thanks. See you soon.” I’m sure the “old man” was meant with affection and not intended to rub it in.

What most amazes me is the capability of my brain to spew stuff like that. I often can’t remember the names of people I’ve met repeatedly, my social security number or whether or not I’m checking a book out of the library I’ve already read. Yet, I can hear the first ten seconds of almost any song I’ve ever played on the radio and name it. Often, I can give you name of the songwriter, the label it appeared on and how far it rose on the charts.

Selective memory, as handy as it may be in avoiding household chores can be scary. What if I find myself parked somewhere in Chehalis and can’t remember why I’m there? Will a time come when people around me will have to try to find diplomatic ways of telling me I’ve forgotten to wear pants? Is there some kind of memory trick I can use to recall peoples names?

Maybe I could get them to hum it for me. By the way, here's the link to "Them Changes."  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w05CYrXe4p4