19. januar 2023 What?

 

Palmville Deer Shack circa 1976.

    My friend Arthur, who lives in California, sent me some old images last week, that he had taken, not far from Wannaska  sometime in the 1970s. One image was of me unlocking the door to a long-ago family deer shack in Palmville. I had a full head of dark-brown hair, no mustache, and upon closer examination a mere hint of a beard along my jawline. In addition, the image included the two women who were temporarily related to us, maritally speaking.

     I don’t remember a shred of this particular trip when apparently, the four of us in my 1973 Mustang drove up to Roseau County, from Des Moines, Iowa, where we all lived at the time. Arthur said there was one color slide in that selection that had ‘May 1976,’ written on it, but you couldn’t prove it by me. I had no idea. “What? When? I don’t remember that,” are frequently familiar statements from me these days, that in addition, often include: “I did?” As well as, “Who? No way!”

     I take it for granted that as a growing-older elder my memory will erode as it’s done for many of my family. Arthur’s most recent photo contribution is obviously toward that very end which only leaves me to wonder if there is a huge sink hole of my life that I’ve unconsciously scuttled off to the side into ‘Never Go Back (unless prompted) Land.’

    I would be at a loss for references that far back, if not for three 'old' friends, including Arthur from Sacramento; Jeff from Des Moines, and Kerry From Carlisle, Iowa, and a box of old journals crammed away in an upstairs dormer. 

    Jeff is about 9 years younger than I am, has known me since he was about 5-years old; so longer than anyone else alive I guess, --save for my two older sisters: Sandra, my senior at eleven years who tried to ignore me for the first ten years of my life or so when I appeared on her scene unexpectedly and spoiled her spoiling; and, my oldest sister Ann Marie, 91, now experiencing in spades what I’m just starting to experience so regularly; I’m sure she has forgotten things about me she didn’t want to know in the first place.

    Jeff, who should naturally have some brain injury/memory loss himself after growing up near me in Des Moines in the first 17 years of his life, like being struck in the head with a cob of firewood accidentally, has proven to be a handy reference when I need it -- and sometimes when I don’t. I can’t help but think he makes things up when he feels like it, the tosser.

    And Kerry, about the same age as Arthur and I, whose acquaintance also extends 60 years starting in our middle or junior high school days, and whom, I tried to literally murder one sunny afternoon (Mom told me not to take my cannon that day), more or less forgave me after long last, to arrive at viewing these pics recently that I sent him, then remarking, "Look at you with your shirt partly unbuttoned and wearing bell-bottom jeans; your arms around the shoulders of those familiar-looking young women [of our past]. You look like an anorexic Burt Reynolds!" Who?

    I suspect the greater majority of people my age experience some degrade of memory. Just being part of the larger crowd is hardly a comforting idea, especially when I forget why I went to the basement for example, or had picked up a pen to note something and forgot what it was I was going to write down. Please remind me that I should add “ARGH!” among other four-letter words to my list of frustration adjectives.

    I sometimes think to add an item to my task lists on my cellphone, or on paper, and do so without hesitation, even remembering to  delete a task immediately after I complete it, figuring I am at least attempting to maintain my sanity; until the other day when I looked on my cell before leaving Lee’s Store:  https://www.facebook.com/wannaska/ and the next item I see on my list was a real game changer that I knew not likely to be found there:

"Tampons." 

'To have on hand for my wife’s nosebleeds.' I remembered.