Memory Problems Anyone?

I wrote the following piece in 1985 when I was a 40-year-old reporter and weekly columnist for the Grants Pass Daily Courier, Southern  Oregon. But I could've written it yesterday! 

Almost 40 when I wrote this.

Trying to Remember Isn't All That Uncommon

I forget things a lot.

I usually remember my name and address and who discovered America and that sort of thing. What I can't recall is what I walked upstairs to get. 

I leave my home office with a mission and moments later, engrossed in an unrelated thought, I've forgotten what it was. 

Or, I go to the grocery store for three items. I memorize the list and recite it on the on the way. I know that if I don't write things down, I'll forget. But just three things? I can handle it. 

But I can't. I meet someone who wants to talk. We ramble on for 10 minutes and POOF, my list is down to two. That third item has disappeared in the mists of short-term memory. I didn't remember the corn until I'm ready to add it to the corn chowder, and we have potato soup instead.

I can recite sonnets from high school but canned corn eludes me. Is this normal?

I'm beginning to think I have a lot of company. In preparing to write this column I asked several people if they consider themselves forgetful. The question produced a lot of rolled-back-of-course-I-do eyeballs, and some embarrassing confessionals. 

One woman not only forgot what she went to the store to buy, but failed to remember that her 9-year-old was with her, and she drove home without him.

Stories like that make me feel somewhat less anxious about dialing a number and forgetting who I called by the time they answer the phone. If I don't recognize the voice, I'm in big trouble. Asking the person you've called who they are is humiliating. 

Another friend frequently forgets which kitchen tool she opened a drawer to retrieve. She has to retrace her steps back to the job at hand to remember, while imitating the cutting or slicing motion of the forgotten tool.

Another woman claims to have a good memory herself, but jokes about her husband who once made three social engagements for the same evening. "He can recite an hour-long poem, but if you send him to the store for milk he'll forget," she relates.  

Forgetfulness apparently has a lot of us worried. It doesn't feel good to make a purposeful trip to the garage or the basement only to stand bewildered, wondering what in the world you went after. 

Or to hide important papers or money, as another woman does, and forget where you put them. 

"It's always a nice surprise to find them later," she says wryly.

Several people I spoke with nervously joked about early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

"Oh, you have it too?" I'd ask, then we'd laugh worried little laughs. It certainly isn't a funny disease, and I don't think any of us really believe we have it, but it somehow springs to mind when one is standing with the refrigerator door agape, searching the shelves for a clue to what one intends to take out. 

Last night I read in Dr. Solomon's column that Alzheimer's can begin in one's thirties....... or was it last week that I read it?

NOTE - Since I wrote the above 40 years ago, I don't believe that my memory is much worse than it was then. Fingers crossed though! Word has it that memory loss is too dang common in the elderly population. But guess what?  Unless I'm looking in a mirror, most of the time I forget that I'm old!