Names

I have always had a knack for remembering names. I can recite all our presidents in order, everybody in my elementary school class including all the teachers I’ve ever had, plus the entire roster of the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers. Hold down the applause; it is just a quirk from my formative years. We don't get to choose what fluff has stuck to the marrow.

However, nomenclature is not my strong suit. I don’t know the names of trees or birds, a birch from a beech or a swallow from a sparrow. Nor can I repeat lines from Shakespeare. I have squandered my faculty. 

Now I am beginning to drop names; not in the sense of impressing anyone, but I’m losing my access to caption certain faces. Yesterday I lost David Foster Wallace and Angela Lansbury. They return to me in 5-10 minutes, but that lapse is disquieting.

Aging is a bumpy road; that one never taken before. Some days I’m an intrepid traveler heading into an imagined safe unknown. Giggling over the all of it and grateful for having been fully met. 

Other times, I feel my architecture withering, long out of warranty and beyond its shelf life. Now I wonder if I’m losing a marble or two, and what potholes are around the corner? No severe tire damage yet.

Can I blame it all on Trump? Only if I regarded him as an inspirational leader. Instead, I’ve been witness to a certifiably failed human being. It’s a rare moment in history when such mindlessness is on full display.

This is my own journey, rounding third on the way home. It can take years; baseball has no clock. We arrive where we started, weary but wiser or, at least, experienced having circled the bases with stories to be told.  

Perhaps I am a knight-errant like that man from La Mancha tilting windmills, lost in time. Are Spencer Tracy and Greer Garson still dead? Why can't I vote for Gregory Peck as President? 

Settle down, Norm, the doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes. What's his name again?