So, I just reached my sixty-ninth year, and the event calls for reflection on the memories of the past. In fairness, I have no recollection of things prior to my first grade (and few memories of that year itself), so for this exercise let’s just say I have 64 years of memories.
How many of my memories are real or conversely, constructed by being told about the event by my parents or others. For instance, I have a memory of me and a cousin (Christine, I believe) at an Easter egg hunt. We were quite young and dressed in our Easter finery, but I just told you I have no/few memories of the years before I started school. So, do I really remember that Easter, or have I recollected a composite of the things my mother and aunts told me about that day?
I also have photos of me and my maternal grandmother outside a house in Gallup NM (I’ve been told the location), and I’m wearing a Daniel Boone outfit. In some of the other photos from the same time there is a German Shepard dog. And in a separate photo, my next youngest brother Richard and I are posed in stereotypical Native leathers and feathers. None of these events do I recall.
Memory is funny. There are varied and conflicting theories about memory, especially long-term vs short. Short-term memory is a thought that lasts about four seconds, and if it is not transferred to long-term memory it’s used and gone. Long-term memories, however, can last a lifetime, notwithstanding traumatic brain injury or a degenerating dementia-related disease.
But the real question is, how does a short-term memory get transferred to the long-term holding area? This is where the conflict comes in. One thought (pun intended): some influence on the short one (repetition, mnemonics, or strength of the event) lodges the memory to the long-term area immediately, rather than transferring and advancing it through various stages. Another theory is there is only one holding area and all thoughts go there, and it’s the recollection process that brings or fails to deliver the desired memory to the conscious level.
Trisha Yearwood sings “The Song Remembers When,” which describes how a song on the overhead speakers in a store immediately brings back memories of a relationship she had long since forgotten. Here follows a really odd example of that for me.
Years ago, I was the Chair of a local chapter of an international security organization and counting this and the other leadership positions I held, I was committedly involved for over nine years. When it became time for me to let it all go, Tom G. (my replacement) and I were in Denver for an annual leadership meeting where he would be sworn in. We stopped early enough to have breakfast in a nearby café before the meeting, and I don’t remember the whole breakfast, but it was likely I had the blueberry pancakes with hash browns and bacon on the side.
Now the odd part: That transition was in January 2014, and to this day when I cook bacon, I have a flashback of that morning. So, how did bacon get tied to the memory of that event? Did the transition OUT of chapter leadership actually affect me more than I fessed up to? Why the bacon and not the pancakes?
All the above, or none of the above! I do know this, however, there are times when a memory jumps up and bites me on the frontal lobes, and often when I least expect it.
Some of us are old enough to remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when we heard of the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, and the killing of John Lennon. Timelier, though, even the younger persons reading this are likely affected by their memories of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and when they are sixty-nine years old they will also say, “I remember when…”.
I’m certainly no brain expert, I’m just musing about things I don’t understand: Are my memories truly mine? Are they really there, have they been erased, or is it that I just can’t get to them?
There are so many comparisons of our brains to computers: Is my storage ROM or RAM (for you younger ones, look that up); have I exceeded my storage space and something needs to get written over; do I still have files in there that some Geek Squad techie can find even though I did a fresh install of my operating system?
As Trisha sings, the song remembers, even if I don’t; to that tune (yes, intended) I will never totally relax my guard. Those skeletons are still out there somewhere even if I can’t remember where I buried them, and yes, I’m sure some of my files have become corrupted with time.
Best regards to all, and let’s be safe out there.
