Memory

In my current course titled Research in American Studies, listed as AMST 502 in the Montana State University campus catalog, we are discussing, via online posts, the value of memory as a historical resource. Memory is a compelling subject for me, because I have several conflicting experiences with it.

In the 90s I volunteered a few times at an Alzheimer’s unit in Missoula, MT. I would take in fly fishing and hunting magazines, and sit at a table with a few gentlemen and just read to them. They really never commented on them, nor did they tell me stories of the good old days. They usually just sat there and drooled.

However, one occurrence really set in motion the oddities of the disease, and the complexities of the mind. Two couples were sitting at an adjacent table. They were not married, they were not related, but they lived in the same unit. Ironically, they acted like they were two married couples. One of the women asked the other couple “When did you folks arrive in Minneapolis?”

The man of the house answered “Well, um, just a few minutes ago.”

The inquisitor responded “Where are you folks staying, because we are having a hard time finding anywhere with vacancy”.

The little lady of the house replied “We found a nice hotel right after we got off the train.”

Ok man--I thought--am I in Missoula? Am I not in a retirement home? What a trip these people are on.

Not many years later my grandmother Ethel had a stroke after trying to take care of my grandfather Ray, who had been secretly suffering from dementia for a few years. He remained alive long after she passed, and he lived in a similar home, unable to recognize or recall anyone who came to visit him. After a while family just didn’t visit because it was too depressing.

I think about these things when I can’t find my damn car keys, or my wallet, or (fill in the blank). I want to blame it on my wife, or my kids or dogs, but it’s really I just don’t give a damn about stuff like that. There’s never any money in my wallet, so who cares where it is. I will be lucky if the car actually starts, and there usually is no gas in it anyway, so who cares where I put the keys.

But, the moments I remember are laden with significance. They are pallets of color, sound, smell. I remember every fish I have ever caught, and that number is in the thousands. I can remember the fly used to catch significant trout, and whether I tied it or bought it. Often I can even recall when and where I tied it.

I remember the biggest fish I ever caught, and the assmunch who rowed his drift boat directly across the river and downstream of where I was, and how he let his obnoxious golden retriever out of the boat so it could run up stream to where I was fighting the 25 inch rainbow hooked on a #16 bead head tan hare’s ear. It was miraculous that I landed it in the cattails and dog legs.

I remember moments involving wildlife, like when a cow elk came ripping out of the woods to slam on her respective four hoof brakes and startle hundreds of carp lounging in a slough on the Missouri. It seemed like the entire river rose six inches, and that mass of elevation swam 800 meters across the mighty Mo. I remember deer hunting with my brother, and his reaction to seeing some tan hide moving through the woods at 20 yards: “Shhh, I see a deer.” Pause and scan through the lodgepoles. “Oh shit dude, a mountain lion.” Its shoulder muscles rippled underneath its hide. Its tail was like a big league slugger’s bat. Same color too.

Once I awoke from a nap while elk hunting, and while lying on my back looked straight up the dead snag behind my head to see a saw-whet owl looking down at me. Once my dad and I awoke under a tarp in the same prone position at Sheep’s Bridge campground to see a Great Horned Owl looking down at us from a tree.

In all of these I remember the temperature, the wind, the cloud cover, or not, and my state of mind. They were usually content, and peaceful, and open.

I also remember the day I met my wife. June 12, 2004. She was astonished last night when I told her this, just as she is every year when I remember that date. It was sunny, hot actually, and I had my feet nestled in the sand at a local park. My pickup line was “are you the babysitter or the mom?”

I also remember water and laughter and tears when Kerby was born July 14, 1995, and the sound of Bianca’s whimper on February 27, 2009 when she was yarded from Erica’s abdomen. I hope these memories will be etched in digital code forever. I hope I never remember a train ride to Minneapolis while sitting at a card table with three complete strangers.