Tag Archive for memory

A Proper Tribute

A proper tribute to the innocent victims of 9-11 is to honor their memory by not perpetuating the blind hatred that caused this tragedy.

In Memory……

A simple message  but from the  heart:

And thank you to all their families for their sacrifices.

 

Fun Memory for Older People

I don’t understand half of what teenagers say today.  On the other hand, each generation has its own language, and this, too, shall pass.  Here’s a fun look back of when some of us were young.  [Thanks to Jim Knudsen for sending this to me.]

“I hope you are Hunky Dory …,” by Richard Lederer

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included “Don’t touch that dial,” “Carbon copy,” “You sound like a broken record” and “Hung out to dry.” A bevy of readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We’d put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some lovers’ lane.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China !

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” or “This is a fine kettle of fish!” we discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston . The very idea! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.  This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.

See ‘ya later, alligator!

Hope for People with Alzheimer’s

Although teenage music may drive you up a tree, if you have Alzheimer’s–even late stage–the right music can do wonders for you.  It can stimulate your memory, make you active or quiet you down, redirect your attention when you become agitated, and lead you to situations in which you feel comfortable with the human touch.

Read the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America’s fascinating article, Education and Care/Music.  It gives hope to anyone who has a loved one suffering from not only Alzheimer’s but any form of dementia.

 

A Remembrance for Today

A few years ago I experienced the Arizona Memorial in Hawaii.  The visit began with a film showing the horrors of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  My eyes blurred with tears.  Then there was the choppy boat trip to the monument, a short distance from other coffin-ships which suffered the same fate as the Arizona.  So many names filled the wall behind the altar-like steps, and the hush of the crowd echoed the silent voices trapped deep beneath us.  Little was said on the trip back to land, but one absurd, disturbing comment shocked me into  realizing that we’ve learned so little since then: “At least we got even when we hit Hiroshima.”

This Veterans Day I’m thinking the Canadians are right to call it “Remembrance Day.”  It’s important to remember and honor our veterans, those who fought for our way of life.  It’s even more important to remember that, as a human family, we should work toward a time when the reason for such occasions, and comments like that woman’s, are only adistant bad memory.

Hug a veteran, and pray for peace.

 

 

Plan for the Future

“One day you’ll just be a memory for some people.  Do your best to be a good one.”  (unknown)

 

 

Health Advice: Drink Champagne

I plan to drink lots of champagne to improve my health and memory. Scientific studies tell me I should. One indicated that the fizzy stuff is good for my heart. Now studies are showing it can be good for my spatial memory and maybe even keep dementia and Alzheimer’s away. Testing has been done on (happy) rats, whose performance increased with the amount of champagne they were given.  Their performance increased even more after being on the bubbly for six weeks.

Yes, the test-subjects were just rats. Researchers are thinking about humans, though.  For example, they’ve figured out that a human would have to drink the stuff regularly for three years in order to reap the full benefits.  There’s still much to be learned.  All I know is that I’m submitting my name to volunteer for the human trials.  I figure, if it works on humans I get to celebrate; if it doesn’t work, I’ve already celebrated.

(See details at The Telegraph article entitled “Three glasses of fizz a day could ‘improve your memory.’”