Memory

Memory loss aheadThink About It.  Memory.  At age 80,  it seemed to me that gainful employment was too taxing for my fragile psyche.  So giving up moneymaking obligations, I headed for a senior center to play bridge and decided to teach a somewhat updated version of bidding called Standard American, providing me with new tables of players willing and able to use some new conventions in the great old game.  Since food has always been fun for me, serving lunches to people mostly younger than I made my newfound retirement a fulfilling experience as well as a filling one for them .

Soon  I wanted (needed?)  something more challenging.  Mary, who wasn’t busy at the time, found an organization that rated retirement communities for their quality and levels of service.  Then reports were given to the State .  Here was  an opportunity for travel, meeting staff and learning residents’ opinions of their care.  We both set out to get the training.

That’s when the fun began.   Before asking survey questions,  hearing happy thoughts and tales of woe, it was necessary to gauge the potential for meaningful dialogue.  First  came competency questions.  Are you ready?

Truth is I can’t remember the test  exactly, which I suppose puts me in an awkward position already. It was something like reciting the words apple, table and brown with a promise to review later.  Now tell me today’s date.  Here’s where my plan came to a sudden halt.  It had been some time since the date really mattered to me.  My “smart” phone provided adequate warning about plans and promises made.  But the precise date?  If you know it this moment,  your relationship with reality is better than mine.  I found it difficult to feel I could judge the mental acuity of someone else by using the standard provided, when there was serious question of my passing the test.

Now, with no peeking, name the words.  Mary easily recalled pomegranate, chair and  mauve, followed by an accurate reckoning of the date.  However, she chose to use her legal background to greater advantage while I set out on an orgy of bridge playing.  A meaning check tells me to strike a word that by oral evolution has come to have only one modern use.  Change that to a marathon of bridge.  Seems I lacked the stamina for either an orgy or a marathon.

That was when I decided it better to search my memory for things to say, research facts with which to prove a point and test my newfound desire to write acceptable prose.  Since there seem to be no arbitrary requirements for content or form,  I decided to do what comes naturally, simply say it as I see it.  This is number 50.

So here you have Sage Thyme, hopefully not senile, but certainly seasoned by many years of varied pleasures and challenging means of providing the necessities of life.  Test or no test, hopefully I still have, for this purpose at least, the necessary Memory.  Think About It.

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