The memory is an amazing instrument. Why is it that I can remember the colors from a mural I saw in 1966 at the Detroit Institute of Arts but cannot remember where I put my keys this morning?
Cleaning closets and prowling through old scrapbooks, we've found a number of "memory joggers." This morning Husband was looking through his scrapbook and found interesting items that took us back in time. He was very excited about a baseball ticket from April 16, 1972, which was his first Cincinnati Reds game. He remembered the Reds played the Dodgers that day.
My Mother-in-law also kept a baby book on her third son, and it is quite complete. Note I said this was her third child! I only have one child, who is nineteen, and I've just taken the baby book out of its protective wrapping. Mother-in-law wrote a description of Husband's first birthday party, which is quite a treasure since a baby has no memory of that date. She noted who attended, what they brought, and who made the cake.
Husband found proof to settle an argument we've been having since 1977. I always swore we met the day that Elvis died, August 16, 1977. He has the proof that I am wrong, a certificate of completion from the Ohio University College Yearbook workshop on August 10, 1977. Husband wins this one, as we met the day the workshop started. (Story for another day. And I don't come out looking that good, so it will have to wait.)
I found a ticket from the 1968 Old Oaken Bucket football game. This is an annual rivalry between to state schools, Indiana University and Purdue University. I was eleven years old and this was the first of many games I attended until I reached emancipation and the Age of Reason. I'm not a huge fan of organized sports, except those between the Democrats and the Republicans.
What I remember about the game is that very drunk males were passing very giddy females -- length-wise -- up and down the stadium rows. Some kid from our country who sat directly behind me, forever known as the "Hayworth boy" kept kicking me in the back just for kicks and giggles.
After the game, we left in a huge crowd which we dubbed "A People Jam" outside the Ross-Ade Stadium in an area with the stadium on one side and a high concrete wall on the other. I could not breathe and was very anxious by the time we got out of the throngs of football fans.
I called Brother when I found the ticket. Still a Boiler fan, he might want the ticket if he didn't have his. Now Brother was 8 in fall 1968. He told me he no longer had his ticket, and before I could say another word, he told me we sat in Row 72, what the score of the game was, that Purdue was down at halftime, and who the quarterbacks were (Mike Phipps and Harry Gonzo.)
My family has always joked with him about his prodigious memory. And my husband has a wonderful memory. Guess I was showed up on two accounts! And I still don't know where my keys are. Quoth the raven.
