This is my weekly newspaper column for this week, published today. Can you relate?
Also available online at:
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/10/18/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis55.txtClutter in the brain-attic
By Rich Lewis, October 18, 2007
Last weekend, my wife and I visited Marblehead, Mass., with two friends. Wandering through the historic, seaside town, we passed a house that had a huge vine loaded with big, pink flowers climbing up its porch railings. I asked the woman in the yard what kind of plant it was.
“Oh, that’s one of my favorites,” she exclaimed. “It’s a... it’s um....”
And a look of complete dismay crossed her face.
“I know this,” she insisted, more to herself than to us.
My friend Jack, noticing her alarm, said, “That’s OK. We all have these senior moments.”
“But I’m not even 50 yet!” the woman said unhappily. She then marched us over to the other side of the house, where a similar vine still had the greenhouse tag on it. “It’s a mandevilla,” she announced with relief.
Up the street, we came to Abbott Hall, a beautiful, 19th-century building that is now a library, museum and the town hall. The key attraction there is “The Spirit of ’76,” Archibald Willard’s famous painting. A cheerful tour guide in her 60s greeted us and launched into a well-rehearsed speech about the painting. She was rolling through names and dates with ease — and then it happened.
“And this figure here is based on a farmer named... uh... named....”
Again that look of dismay.
“Oh, my,” she sighed. “I’ve given this speech so many times, but it’s just one of those senior moments.”
We had a good laugh after we went outside. Twice in a half-hour we had witnessed that awkward lapse now universally known as a “senior moment.” We weren’t laughing at the people involved, but because this “moment” has become so common in our own lives. I’ve had more “senior moments” than I care to remember — or, more pointedly, can remember.
Jack said he saw it so often he was thinking of creating a new game show called “Senior Jeopardy” — in which contestants wouldn’t have to answer any question until 10 minutes after the next question had been asked.
That’s the thing about senior moments — the missing information isn’t lost, it just isn’t where we thought we’d left it. Ten minutes, or an hour later, it pops out as clear and familiar as ever.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this ever since, did some research, and wanted to pass along a few thoughts — before I forget them.
I first heard the term “senior moment” just a few years ago and thought it was odd that I hadn’t heard it before. I mean, people have always grown “forgetful,” right?
Well, it turns out the phrase “senior moment” first appeared only in 1996! In fact, it was named “Word of the Year” by the staff at Webster’s New World College Dictionary in 2000.
So if you think you’ve been hearing it a lot more lately than when you were a kid, you have — because it’s only 11 years old.
The terms means “a brief period when someone, especially an elderly person, is unable to remember something.”
Some experts say that by putting a name on it, we actually worsened the problem, because we became more aware of it and started to worry about it.
The folks at Webster’s also say, “The term highlights the idea that our brains simply weren’t built to cope with the information overload and stress generated by life in the 21st century.”
Right on target. I have so much stuff to cram into my brain these days that some things are doomed to evaporate. For example, I now have to remember at least a dozen computer passwords to conduct basic, daily business, such as logging onto my e-mail or using my debit card. The four people in my family now all have a cell phone, plus our home phone, so I have five numbers to remember instead of one. My head can’t store all this stuff.
Which reminded me of a passage from the Sherlock Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet.” Dr. Watson is amazed to discover that the famous detective knows “next to nothing” about “literature, philosophy and politics.” Holmes doesn’t even know that “the earth travelled round the sun.”
To which Holmes replies: “A man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him.... It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before.”
Very wise, that Holmes.
But here’s some good news. You don’t think I remembered that Holmes’ quote on the spot, do you? I used what computer expert Leo Laporte calls “Google-assisted memory.” I Googled it. The information-saturated computer-age might be one source of our “senior moments,” but it also offers help. Of course, you have to be online, which didn’t help those two women in Marblehead.
Still, I am comforted to know that my brain isn’t turning to banana mush, but that I merely have too much furniture in my “brain-attic.”
Remember that the next time you think you’re losing your marbles.
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Rich Lewis’ e-mail address is... uh... wait, it’ll come to me....Oh, yes, rlcolumn@comcast.net.
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