The Village Idiot

By Jim Mullen

Peo­ple nat­u­rally worry about their mem­ory as they get older. “Oh, I can’t remem­ber where I put my read­ing glasses. It must be the begin­ning of the end.” Really? Fol­low a teenager around some­day and watch how much they forget.

“My math final is today, and I for­got to study for it!”

“I kissed Billy. I for­got I was dat­ing Bobby!”

“I for­got I wasn’t sup­posed to take Dad’s car with­out permission.”

“No, I don’t remem­ber you ever say­ing that I couldn’t get a tat­too until I was 40.”

In healthy peo­ple, much of what is remem­bered is a choice. We remem­ber the things that are impor­tant to us, while uncon­sciously decid­ing that other things are not worth it. That’s why for­get­ting birth­days and anniver­saries is con­sid­ered so unfor­giv­able. The injured party senses that the spe­cial date wasn’t impor­tant enough to be remembered.

“I don’t remem­ber the doc­tor say­ing I shouldn’t eat so much salt and should cut down on calo­ries.” Why would you bother to remem­ber some­thing like that?

“I don’t remem­ber you telling me your mother was com­ing to visit. For three weeks.”

“I shot a par. My part­ner says I got a six. He must have a lousy memory.”

These kinds of things can be explained as lapses, lies, denials or delu­sions. How­ever, there is one kind of mem­ory dis­tor­tion that is not so easy to explain. Just last week, I was telling one of my many riv­et­ing and enter­tain­ing sto­ries to some friends at din­ner. I picked some­thing I knew they had never heard before, because I don’t want to become known as one of those bor­ing old men who tell the same sto­ries over and over again. Even the best story can stand only so many tellings.

So I was telling one of my many riv­et­ing and enter­tain­ing sto­ries to some friends at din­ner. I picked some­thing I knew they had never heard before, because I never want to become known as one of those bor­ing old men who tell the same sto­ries over and over again. At the end, Bob woke up and said, “How long ago did that happen?”

I said, “Oh, eight or 10 years ago.”

Sue said, “It was 25 years ago.” It seems she had heard the story before (and, of course, she was in it).

Could it have been that long ago? Well, let’s see, when was Jimmy Carter pres­i­dent? Ten, 15 years ago? Thirty? Really?

Some­one men­tioned a pop­u­lar film. When did that come out? I remem­bered see­ing it with Sue in a movie the­ater and the snacks we ate while watch­ing it. I remem­bered the the­ater wasn’t very crowded. I remem­bered it was cold that day.

“When did that come out?” Mary asked.

“Five, six years ago,” I said.

“1996,” said Sue. Well, I was close.

I asked my friend John, who just turned 62, if he had expe­ri­enced this odd mem­ory quirk.

“All the time,” he said. “I used to be able to tell you what year some­thing hap­pened. One day that stopped. I could still tell you in which decade some­thing hap­pened, but not the year.

“When did this Bea­t­les record come out? I could tell you it was in the ‘60s. Disco? The ‘70s. ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’? Fax machines at home? Some­where in there. My first home com­puter? My first Star­bucks cof­fee? I throw up my hands. Some­time in the last 30 years.

“The divi­sion of time in my head is not years, but eras. That hap­pened in grade school. That hap­pened in high school. That hap­pened in col­lege, that hap­pened at this job, that hap­pened when I worked for so-and-so. In my head, I’m not 62. I’m 35. If some­thing hap­pened 40 years ago, sub­con­sciously I must think I’m not old enough for that to have hap­pened 40 years ago. So I say five years ago. Or 10.”

“I’ve just noticed it hap­pen­ing to me this year,” I said.

“The rest of us have been notic­ing you doing it for 10 years,” John said.

“Twenty-five,” said Sue.

(Jim Mullen’s newest book, “How to Lose Money in Your Spare Time — At Home,” is avail­able at amazon.com. You can fol­low him on Pin­ter­est at pinterest.com/jimmullen.

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