King and I are in California, which has been under "mandatory social distancing" for seven days. So far other than less traffic on the highways, there is not much difference. But then we aren't very social beings so it's hard to tell from our occasional trips to the pharmacy and grocery store.
There is something about the word "mandatory" that makes this feel different. It brings out the muse. So... here goes. It's been a while.
Ever hear the expression, "She has a mind like a steel trap? It means a person is able to grasp a concept quickly and retain the information. My mind is more like a fish trap. I can catch certain ideas but others slip through the net.
Memories are an example.
I can remember some individual high school assignments as if they were handed out yesterday. But the periodic table? That one slipped through that net like it was a minnow. And it's not just the all-important chemistry stuff I can't remember (that is a nod to my sister, the retired chemistry teacher), there are grammatical things that the writer in me refuses to retain. For instance I know there is a time to use who and a time to use whom, but I have to look up which one to use when needed. Most of the time I will look for a different way to write a sentence rather than look it up. (My favorite line is 'Whom gives a damn?' and people are always correcting me for it. It is intentional). I also have to stop and think a second when it comes to multiplication. I will confess that most of the time I will use the calculator on my phone before adding things in my head but I can do it in a pinch.
But there are some grammatical things that have always been with me. Many were learned along the way because my mother was a stickler when it came to speaking. Mom would never allow us to use the word "ain't." We saw it, we never seen it -- unless we had seen it. Main't (a contraction of may not) was a huge no no. And the West Michigan Dutch classic "yet too," was totally off limits.
When I was an exchange student in Finland I met a young French couple while camping in northern Finland. We were conversing in English when I asked them where they were from. (As in "Where are you from?") They were quite taken aback as I had ended a sentence with a preposition, I mean I supposedly spoke the language fluently and had just committed a great faux pas. I completely get it and I don't fault them in the least. But it does remind me of a joke I heard years ago...
A group of coeds from the north were traveling to the south for spring break. They stopped at a diner for lunch and when the waitress approached their table she smiled and said, "Hi there! Where are y'all from?" To which one of the coeds replied, "I am so tired of these backwoods people ending their sentences with a preposition." So the waitress corrected herself and said, "Hi There! Where y'all from, bitch?"
But back to my original point. I can recall my very first "news: article. It was for a high school Freshman English class. We were doing a mock radio station segment. The class divided into group and each group was required to create their own radio station -- complete with one news segment, one music segment and one ad. The group I was in chose the station's call letters as WHAM. (We lived in Hamilton, get it? So original). Any time we mentioned our call letters one of us crashed together the largest cymbals we could pilfer from the band room. (It paid to be a trustworthy band geek). My "news" article (ok, it was complete fiction) was a feature article -- a parody of the latest fashion -- hot pants. (Remember those?) Except I turned the tables and put the hot pants on the school's football team. Apparently even as a young teen I knew the inequities between the sexes. I included quotes (fake of course) from teachers, fellow students and the assistant principal. For our ad segment we did a parody on Nair Hair Remover and suggested the school buy it by the case for the team because of their new uniforms. (Come to think of it now, basketball shorts back then were obscenely short. Hmmm). The presentations had to be 15 minutes in length so for music we chose the longest song we would find at the time, Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer. And here is a trivia fact: American Pie is three minutes longer than The Boxer. Alas, the assignment was made several years before American Pie was written.
So. Why can I remember things like an English assignment from 1971, but can't remember a phone number from the time I look it up (on my phone of course) to the time I have to dial it?
The mind remembers what it wants to remember.
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