Memory On Sabbatical

There is a trailer that has been playing for the last three or four months at the movie theater I normally go to that talks about the Will Roger’s Institute and how donations from moviegoers has helped finance all kinds of programs used at the institute. According to the trailer, millions and millions of dollars have been donated to the institute. The problem is, I don’t remember ever donating money to them.

But then it hit me: Way back in the mid- to late-1970’s they used to play a Will Roger’s Institute commercial on the screen at the movie theater and then they would stop everything, turn on the lights and pass a couple of buckets around the audience for people to donate money into, kind of like a movie version of the collection plate at church.

The memory I have of this happening is of me sitting next to my dad at some movie I saw with him, the title of which has been lost to the winds of time. I do remember that the walls of the movie theater were brown, but I doubt that helps much. I won’t even attempt to name the film because that memory is absolutely gone. But I do remember several occasions where a film was stopped and a bucket was passed around to collect money for the Will Roger’s Institute.

So I’m not really worried about what happened to the collection bucket because it’s obvious that a bunch of them probably went missing and they had to find a new way to collect money from moviegoers. What worries me is what exactly happened to the rest of my memories of the circumstances surrounding those collection buckets. Where are they? Are they still with me?

Logic would assume that they have to still be with me, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to recall something that hasn’t happened for 30 years. Where has that memory been? Hanging out with a bunch of other random, nearly meaningless memories down at the pub, throwing back pints and waiting to get called up to mess up my mental processes for an afternoon?

The fact that I remember anything kind of leads me to believe that I probably remember everything. If a smell can trigger something specific in my mind (my kindergarten teacher, whose name is a mystery to me, used to smell like a very specific mixture of cigarettes and perfume that other women occasionally have and it hits my nose from time to time and brings me right back to the days of Dick, Jane and Spot), and a song can bring me back to a certain time in my life, should I assume that everything that has ever happened to me is stored somewhere in my memory?

If you think about that in real terms, that should boggle the part of your mind that is prone to that sort of thing. Everything you’ve ever seen, heard, smelled, tasted or touched is somewhere inside of you if we subscribe to this theory.

I went so far as to call my dad and ask him if he ever remembered something like that happening. It was obvious that he hadn’t thought of it in probably the same amount of time I had. It’s kind of neat to be on the other end of the phone listening to someone’s light bulbs light up as they slowly recall some otherwise meaningless event that is only a noteworthy experience because it is a shared experience.

At the same time, a friend of mine told me about a time where a few of us TP’ed a guy’s house when we were in high school and I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT remember doing that. I don’t even have the faintest glimmer of a recollection of doing that and it has even gotten to the point where I want to go TP his house just so I can see what it feels like, see if I can’t jog some memories or something.

Where the hell is that memory? Why can I remember some guy standing in a movie theater, begging with a bucket, but I can’t remember something that should be a semi-noteworthy experience in my life?

Alcohol, I blame you.

Man, I could go on and on about this subject, but I don’t think I would get anywhere. What are your thoughts?

B!

Catching The Wind

On my way home from work today I was behind a green Ford Thunderbird with at least three young adults in it. First off, I know I’m getting old because I can call people in their late teens and early twenties “kids” and “young adults.” I guess that makes me a “medium” adult, because I think the crossover from adult to “old person” is about 53 years old.

Ask me about that “old person” thing when I’m 53 and I’m sure I’ll be able to slide that one up to 70 pretty easily. Don’t ask me anything when I’m 70 because I won’t have time for any stupid foolishness like answering questions about my age and how I feel. I’ll be too busy going to bed at 6:30 at night and enjoying my breakfast at 4AM at Denny’s. And don’t you dare get in between me and my Moons Over My-Hammy. I will kill you. What are they going to do, give me life in prison? It will be worth the 2 years I serve to see the look of shock on your face when I stab you with in the ear with my fork for interrupting my morning date with two eggs and a slab of ham. Fair warning.

Anyway, as I’m rolling behind this Thunderbird, the passenger window rolls down and a hand comes out, trying to catch the wind. At the time I couldn’t tell if the hand belonged to a young person or an old person, boy or girl. All I could see was it trying to catch the wind. Then it did the “swan move” and made itself more aerodynamic, then it started surfing the wind as it blew past, moving up and down as the wind dictated.

Seeing that hand made me happy. It made me think about the first time I ever caught the wind in my hand like that. It made me think about riding in a blue Econoline 150 van with my dad back in the 1970’s. It was equipped with captain’s chairs in the front and no chairs in the back, just a shag rug because it was the ‘70’s and nobody had any concept of style or safety back then. Seat belts? Not so much. Maybe a lap belt for the driver, but everyone else in the car would have been left to bounce off of each other like a huge polyester mosh pit in the event of a crash.

But that passenger window in that van was perfect for catching the wind. My dad used to have an air conditioning system he used to call “the 255 A/C system.” It sounds cool, but all it meant was two windows down and 55 miles an hour. Nothing to do but catch the wind and sweat when you’re in advanced technology like that. Fortunately we lived in Colorado so you could get away with that air conditioning system for most of the summer there. Still, I wonder how much wonderful Colorado scenery I missed while staring at my hand while it caught the wind.

Then I have to wonder if I will ever get too old to be mesmerized by the feel of the wind on my hand as I drive down a road somewhere. I hope not. But you rarely, if ever, see old people driving with the windows down and their hands out the window. Did they just forget about doing that? Or is that something that loses its allure over the years?

I hope I never get too old to feel the wind.

B!