People are living longer than at any time in history (except for
Noah
’s day when to live a few hundred years wasn’t unusual.) But as
we are living longer, probably due to advanced medical procedures,
better nutrition and the disappearance of some fatal diseases, we
are becoming more and more aware of our memories not working as
well.
People are living longer than at any time in history (except for Noah’s day when to live a few hundred years wasn’t unusual.) But as we are living longer, probably due to advanced medical procedures, better nutrition and the disappearance of some fatal diseases, we are becoming more and more aware of our memories not working as well.
Recently, a friend called my husband and I said to him, “Would you like to play pinochle Friday night?” He asked his wife and said “Yes! Is 5 o’clock okay?” I said
“Fine” and wrote it on the calendar. On Friday I cooked a nice dinner and set the table and sat down to wait for our friends. Five o’clock came and went and they didn’t appear.
They are very prompt people, as we are, and I began to think maybe I misunderstood the time. I called their home and his wife answered. “Did I get the time mixed up?” I asked. She replied, “5 p.m.” and I said “Well, it’s 5:15 – did you get delayed?” She said, “No, did you?” Then she gasped and said “Did you think we were coming to your house?” I told her I had dinner already and she said “So do I, and we were waiting for you!”
We both burst out laughing and began going over the menus to see which one would keep best. She was having corned beef and cabbage and a salad she’d found in Sunset magazine that has the dressing already on it and I was having a casserole and corn on the cob. Since I could put mine in the freezer, we decided to go to their house because cabbage wouldn’t really keep well. My husband and I laughed all the way there and kept giving each other a bad time all evening.
My other most recent memory lapse was when I bought a new wallet a couple of months ago and didn’t remember it having two zipper sections that will hold bills. I put smaller bills in the one on the outside and kept the inside one for larger bills and checks. As I went to pay for strawberries on Masten Avenue, I didn’t have enough money in the outside section. I started to go back to the car when I remembered the inside zipper. As I opened it and pulled out the money, there were four or five $20 bills. (There wouldn’t have been if I’d remembered they were in there.)
As I was attempting to separate them, a gust of wind blew them out of my hand. They blew around the parking lot and I took off running and trying to grab them. I got the first two okay but two of them blew around a car and behind the front wheel. As I was bending way down to get them, the other one blew by and out into the field behind the stand.
I began running after it and I burst out laughing thinking of how I must look to the other customers – a little old grandma chasing $20 bills around a parking lot while trying to hold onto my billfold and the other $20’s I’d already picked up. Just when I would reach the bill, it would blow a little farther, but I finally got them all and went back and paid for my strawberries.
Since it was a day of “adventures” I called to tell our daughter about it and she said “I have something to share with you, too!” She said “I was driving up the freeway and there was a car up ahead that was driving in the fast lane next to the commuter lane too slowly and everyone was going around it. I was thinking that the person should get over into one of the slow lanes.
“As I got closer, the car finally did pull over into the next lane but the person didn’t see a car pretty close behind them and cut him off. The man pulled angrily around the person and flipped them off! And Mom, as I reached that car, it was you! I felt like going after that man and yelling “You can’t flip off my mother!”
I was very embarrassed when she told me because I remember nothing of the incident and wasn’t aware any one had flipped me off. But it was a good lesson for me – I realized that I’d been driving on the new freeway without paying enough attention to the cars around me and vowed to change my ways immediately. I now turn my head and body around when I change lanes, I stay in the lane consistent with how fast I’m willing to drive.
I have asked the Lord to help me be more alert when I’m behind the wheel. I think a lot of us would profit from doing that. There’d be less “road rage.” We get so used to driving the freeways we are not sensitive to the dangers.
I never use my cell phone anymore while driving unless it’s for a short, emergency call saying I’m late. I never have personal conversations when I’m driving and if those of you who do were aware of how you drive, you’d stop talking, too. I’m sure we’ve all been behind someone talking on the phone and speeding up and slowing down and drifting into the other lane and not even realizing it. I learned a good lesson that day – I learned to be more alert and conscious of my driving and not just listening to the radio or CD’s but paying attention.
Morgan Hill resident Lou Beardsley has written four books on marriage and family. The Board of Contributors is comprised of local writers whose views appear on Tuesdays and Fridays.
