I have written before about the differential nature of memory, but I’d like to add a few thoughts. Frank Bruni and I share experiences in this regard, so I am sure it is not unique to me.

Because of my excellent long-term memory (and sometimes from ancient journals), I frequently tell people about epochal effects their words or actions from decades ago remain with me still. The typical response: “I don’t remember, but that sounds like me.” (the IDR response)

Another example:  in 1964 I was selling The Beech Street Bugle, a four-page mimeographed newspaper bearing the same name as my father’s paper 18 years earlier. FN Sold to many of the same people, that’s how stable our neighborhood was FN. One of my readers was Cathy. I know it was 1964, because The Bugle ran an editorial endorsing Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater. FNNo doubt our editorial was responsible for Goldwater’s bad showingFN

She was a good writer FN As evidenced by hear years at the Associated PressFN. She pointed out that I had started a sentence with the word “and” and told me not to do that. Fifteen years later, after a variety of amateur jobs (a few hundred thousand words), I felt a little thrill when my first professional sentence starting with the word “and” made it into the trade journal I was working for. FNprobably because its copy editing wasn’t up to AP, UPI and the Oregon JournalFN

Cathy and I had lunch a few times several years ago, when I had looked her up out of curiosity. I told her I had never forgotten that rule, and she game me the IDR response, and also said that a half-century later she wasn’t even sure it was good advice.

Continuing on from the post…

I was actually on the receiving end of that differential several times at my 50^th reunion. People came up to me and said, “I’ve never forgotten how nice you were.” One of the biggest moments of their lives, just another day in the office for me.

I like to think I was generally a nice guy, in an effort not to be Michael F, who threw this review back at me during the first week of my freshman year and called it “a piece of shit.” Three years later, I was elected editor-in-chief of the paper.

I’d ask him if remembers it, but he has successfully eluded the Internet… and me.

I know Prof. Tony Sinskey, my freshman adviser, told me I was in the “twilight of a mediocre academic career” because I went home and wrote it down immediately and have that journal still, 54 years later. And let’s not forget the MIT Math t.a. who gave my my degree by granting me a pity pass. I can’t find her, but I feel certain I was just one of hundreds of freshman whose self-paced tests she graded. I would be shocked if she remembered me, but I will never forget  her.

There are also some memories that didn’t involve words. Chris D watched my brother and me while my mom was in Europe. We made a TV dinner, following the instructions. The cardboard box caught fire, because the instructions FN Not surprisingly FN did not include removal from the box. I looked recently, and now the first step on the box is “remove from cardboard box,” probably as a result of experiences like ours. I’m willing to bet that Chris’ memory or this is not as distinct as mine (the Internet can’t find him)

One other physical memory. The supervisor of my high school radio station, Dr. Patricia L. Swenson, was a stickler for old fashioned manners. I was carrying heave equipment upstairs to the station when I noticed she wasn’t with me. I went back down, to discover her waiting outside the door. “A gentleman holds a door open for a lady,” she said. If she were still alive, I’d be surprised if she remembered a moment I remember to this day.

My other musings on the subject: Differential Experience and Grudges
The Differential Experience of Time

Forgiving Feirtag