Before I Forget

Folks our age are always wondering why we can't remember something. It can be serious or frivolous but we worry about it anyway.

My wife recently took a course billed as “Brain and Memory,” given by a group of gerontologists and nutritionists. Leave it to the clinicians to bottle old wine in new verbiage. Their theory as to why we can't remember as well as we used to is not that we are losing our ability to recall but that our “Memory Recording Device” (MRD) is not working as well as it used to.

The use of euphemisms to disguise or soften what otherwise would be distasteful is rampant in our society. Note the fanciful names congressmen give their legislation to hide the fact that it's going to cost us money or pain.

So what, I ask you, is the difference between forgetting things now and then and a malfunctioning MRD? I use my PMB (Personal Memory Bank) which is now 80 per cent full. My wife's is 79 per cent full. And so much of what we do is automatic it isn't worth depositing.

Do we need to name this condition? Loss of memory comes with aging. Unfortunately for some, sooner rather than later. We've deleted what we no longer need to know. So we stick to essentials. Look both ways before crossing the street. Watch your step on uneven pavements. Did you lock the car? Do you have the keys, tickets, passports, etc.?

As for our memory banks, we're pushing overdraft.

Have a nice...what?