New license plates came in the mail this week. New numbers, new letters.
I'm one who uses mneumonics, words and phrases to remember names and numbers by association. With our old license plates, I memorized the jingle, Eat A Peach. It's funny cuz the minute my eyes glommed onto our new plate numbers, a mneumerism came to me without effort.
If my mind isn't paying attention as it should when I'm being introduced to a stranger, two minutes later my brain will be scrambling. That's when a person falters and comes up with generic, one-size-fits-all words. Some brains are harder to rein in, line mine. The mass of mush encased in my skull is like a bucking bronco. It doesn't want to be fenced in with hand-me-down thinking.
If I'm introduced to someone whose name is Phyllis, I'll probably associate her with Phyllis Diller. The next time I see Phyllis, I'll think of the crazy lady with a wild set of hair and a cigarette holder, and I'll know her name is Phyllis. If it's a man and his name is Fred, then I'll associate him with Fred Flintstone. If my license plate would have been FTX, maybe Fat Texas would be a good word association. Our street address is easy to remember, cuz we were victorious in winning WWII.
Just imagine the flowing river of names and numbers our brains keep track of over a lifetime. We remember faces, first and last names, maiden names and married names, birth dates and anniversaries, addresses, zip codes, telephone numbers, fax numbers, websites, user names, and passwords. We remember experiences from way back to when we were in Primary playing with clay and learning the abc's. The brain retrieves a memory, and we can close our eyes and live through it again and again. Our mind's eye keeps photos of faces and places.
We remember prayers, quotations, languages, grammar, punctuation, and scads of rules for every side of life. We interpret road signs, read labels, work puzzles, read books, follow road maps and instructions how to put an end table together or put the ingredients together in a recipe. We go to school and keep jamming knowledge away like we're stuffing a pillow. We have to remember what to do with a hammer, a table saw, nail clipper, and a pepper grinder, how to start a car, know what to do with a blue tooth, and make wise decisions in a hurry. Plus, maintaining a vocabulary, remembering how to write cursive and how to print. In my case, throw in Gregg Shorthand, which is a system of writing in scribbles and scrawls. We must keep track of time, know the calendar and manage our months, weeks, days, and down to hours and minutes. Civilized man has put together a complex society in which we all take part and must abide by, to make life work. All the while keeping the lid on our emotions and the social skills that keep us from killing each other. To top it off, we carry grudges, cuz the brawny brain insists on harboring and lugging around bad bruises and those who did the bruising. How does the brain keep it all straight.
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