Memory Loss

 

I’ve talked about old age and memory loss before.

It began and has advanced some over time with names,

generally people’s names, specifically movie stars or

famous people’s names with whom everyone who has

ever watched TV or movies should be familiar.

This likely could be considered a normal condition for

the elderly. I’m not to the point of considering dementia

or Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s enough to piss me off

when I’m talking to my son about a movie I saw recently.

(The title of which has also slipped my mind.)

Oh, you know him, he always plays a rough and tumble

guy. He starred in many films like, well, you know…

And so it goes for minutes on end, me painfully wracking

my brain to come up with the son-of-a-bitch’s name. He

was in that movie with Helen Hunt, where she was a

waitress to a snarky, older, obsessive-compulsive guy

who was a regular customer of hers.

Jack Nicholson, my son replied?

No, that’s not him, but about the same age and temper-

amental disposition as Nicholson, I told him.

Oh, you know…Damn it, anyway! The name will come to

me in the middle of the night when I’ dozing off to sleep.

I bid my son good night and hung up the phone. Then I

tried to put the incident out of my mind and watch

something unrelated on TV. The question of who that

actor was popped up now and again as I tried to focus

on other things.

In addition to not remembering the name, I can’t even

recall one title among the hundreds of movies in which

he has acted. I hate this growing old shit. And it’s always

got to be over stupid, little, insignificant, everyday things

which really ticks me off…

Hackman, Gene Hackman! That’s it!

And at 9:30 at night I had to call my son on the

phone. Hello, my son answered...

Gene Hackman, I tell him.

Yep, he replied, he’s pretty famous all right.

I had to let you know when it was fresh on my mind,

I told my son.

You could have written it down and called me tomorrow,

he said.

No, I said to him. I needed to get it off my mind right now,

tonight.

It wasn’t important enough for me to lose any sleep over.

                            -30-

Chris Hanch 2-14-2021