As we age, we get lost in fog on trips down memory lane

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

The five of them were talking about a restaurant we had eaten in last year.

"It was across from Pat O'Brien's," one of them said.

"It had all that chrome going on."

"We ate breakfast there two mornings."

"And you got french toast and bacon both times," Maryanne told me.

They remembered but I didn't. It was gone, a restaurant and two mornings.

Normally, this wouldn't be cause for alarm. Mornings morph. Restaurants blend. Except this had been a special weekend last year when we had all met in New Orleans, and there we were again this year, same time, same bar, reminiscing.

I kept prodding. They kept supplying clues. Finally we went back to the scene of the crime. And it all came back. The checkered floor. The pictures of old movie stars on the walls. I even remembered the dark-haired waiter. But until I walked in the door, I didn't remember a thing.

So what does this mean?

"When do you think was the last time we saw my father's brother and his wife?" I ask my husband. We don't see them often.

He shrugs, "I don't know. A year and a half ago? Two years?"

"They came here for lunch on Oct. 1. That's what it says in my journal."

"I must have been away."

"You weren't. You and my father and Louise were here. I made beef stew."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

But only because I wrote it down.

Three sisters live together. One is in the kitchen making tea. Another is in the living room reading a book. The third is on her way up the stairs to take a bath. This sister runs the bath water, takes off her clothes, puts one foot in the tub, and then stops and thinks, am I getting into the tub or am I getting out of the tub? And because she isn't sure, she screams.

The sister in the living room drops her book and comes running. She races up the stairs and at the top pauses to catch her breath. And suddenly she thinks, am I going up the stairs or am I going down the stairs?

And she screams.

The first sister remains at the kitchen table quietly sipping her tea. She hears her sisters' screams and sighs and says out loud to the empty kitchen, "Thank God I am not as crazy as they are," and knocks three times on the wall.

And then she gets up to answer the door.

This is an old joke.

"Think better. Train brain," AOL flashes on a day when I am seriously concerned about a brain that forgets a restaurant and an uncle. "Breast milk boosts IQ. Too late for that?" Then "Wine is a wise choice."

This isn't a joke. These are actual headlines.

I once left my daughter at dancing school. I forgot she was there. I thought she was upstairs in her room. The phone rang and she said, "Where are you?" and I said. "In the kitchen." And she said, "Why didn't you pick me up?" And I said, "What are you talking about and why are you calling from your room?"

But I was young then and didn't panic. I laughed when I realized what had happened. It was a joke. Imagine forgetting your daughter.

"I've forgotten more than you'll ever know," my mother used to say when I was a know-it-all teen and giving her a hard time for forgetting my friends' names. She always said, "Billy Aldren" instead of "Ahglren." Why couldn't she get it right?

Now I say "Trina" instead of "Tina" and "Kristen" instead of "Kirsten." It seems you reach a certain age and your brain, like Velcro, doesn't hold onto things the way it used to. Names fall off. Names of people. And restaurants. And uncles.

There are ways you can challenge your brain, according to AOL. Learn to play a musical instrument. Play Scrabble or do crossword puzzles. Try out a new hobby. Read.

I read. But when people ask, "What are you reading?" do you think I can remember? "It's by Alice Hoffman and it's about a woman married to a man she thinks she knows, but doesn't and it's wonderful, really. But I forget the name."

About wine being a memory booster? The study AOL cites to give weight to this theory looks at 700 Danes ages 29-34 and asks, "Are wine drinkers healthy because they drink wine or are people who make smart choices about their health more likely to drink wine than beer?"

And what exactly does this have to do with memory?

Write it down. That's the real key to remembering. "What's the name of that restaurant where we ate breakfast in New Orleans?" I ask my husband.

"Poppy's," he tells me.

"In New Orleans last week we ate breakfast at Poppy's," I write in my journal so that next year I won’t have to ask my husband. Next year I will remember, too.