Memories

“Teddy Roosevelt was the only president I ever liked.”   So said my father when he recalled a statement his father once said.  When I think about that statement I realize that a string of three memories had to come into play - Grandpa’s for comparing TR to other presidents, Dad’s for remembering what he’d said, and mine for recalling Dad’s statement.  This holds little significance for anyone except maybe a few family members.  In the absence of recorded history, they are what brings the past to light.

At one time books did not exist.  Nothing could be written down in the present for readers of the future; people had to rely on memory to pass stories on.  Some became so good at remembering stories passed down through the generations that when the printing process came along,  ancient material was printed from the long-line of memory. 

Were people’s memories better then?  No, they just trained themselves to remember.  Some of them used patterns or associations called a Memory Palace where they stored information in some orderly fashion. There is no reason we couldn’t memorize long books such as Homer’s The Odyssey or the Iliad. It just takes practice.  Personally, I never was good at memorizing. With such things as “The Village Blacksmith,” I would get about halfway through,  then pull some antics so the teacher would tell me to take my seat.  I could have used some how-to-do it hints from Homer.  Presently, there isn’t much demand for memorizers.  It’s much easier to look information up on the internet. 

We recently attended a large family gathering where pictures of old-time relatives circled around.  Pictures are always popular and receive a good share of attention.  Many of them had names written on their backsides which gave the viewers satisfaction in identifying  the subjects.  Unfortunately, some pictures did not have any names on them, and we were hard-pressed to figure out just who they might be.  Their identities will be forever unknown.  At least for purposes of the particular pictures, memory of them is lost.

A picture I have of an uncle on horseback where a deep snow background tells part of the story.  Simply explained roads were blocked at that time in 1947 and he had to ride those 10 or 12 miles to attend his father’s funeral.  A car sets there, too, stalled because it could go no further.  I always thought it was a Kaiser car, but my cousin Lance says, “No, it’s a Frazer.”  My memory recalls that whatever it was, it was a very nice car.

It so happened on the day President Trump recently landed Air Force One in Fargo to raise campaign funds, we drove to Kroll’s Diner for breakfast.  Beside our table hanging on the wall was a framed page from a magazine advertising 1947 Kaiser-Frazer cars.  The caption praised them, “You’ve admired their modern styling — the long, low road-hugging lines that have set a new vogue in automobile design.”

As an aside, this has little to do with memory, except that it was unusual.  In the cafe that morning sat six men dressed in black.  I didn’t think a lot about it until they got up to leave which made their belt-mounted pistols and badges evident.  Moments later, a group of four others walked in sporting the same gear.  How many security people accompany a president when they travel?  

It brought to mind of the time in Washington, DC when we stood in line waiting to enter the Washington Monument.  Plainly visible were men atop buildings holding rifles.  When I made it to the top and looked out towards the White House, I saw why the riflemen stood at the ready.  A flight of three helicopters flew by.  One of them dropped to land on the White House lawn and let off its passengers - George W. and Laura Bush.  Just another memory.

How many times have we overheard old-timers talking about “the old days” and the “dirty thirties,” the depression, the war, prohibition, or some hard winter.  Merle Haggard sang “In the good old days, when times were bad,” while Barbra Streisand’s song  remembers “the time I knew what happiness was.  Let the memory live again.”