As I Grow Older: A Love Affair Remembered – The Pontiac GTO

Say It Ain’t So - 

In the New York Times, Sunday, May 3, 2009 edition – I was stunned and thrilled to have my memory banks shaken and stirred by a visual look at a real beauty that basically created my first obsession. There is a full-age layout of images going back to 1965 and then 1970. Even though the story was primarily about how a motor company – Pontiac – is currently in demise, the images triggered some time-travel for me – and maybe for you.

The story in the NY Times was like a snapshot back to a time in my life where I was “the man” in sports – track and field, some basketball, and definitely a swaggering young buck at baseball. I was “in love” with several young women in my class – each one a reason to live and simply to show up to class – just to see their hair in pigtails or cut in some new fashion – and their sweet smiling faces and their shapely heart-stopping legs – and it all set fire to my soul (or if you prefer the blunt message = those girls were gasoline on my junior high male hormonal grass-fire).

But yet, there was also another love – as powerful and strong. I simply had to have her.

I confess. I was in love with another. She was as immaculate and sexual and sleek and power – and she broke my heart in a thousand pieces. I was too young to fully realize the gravity of it all – but it did not matter. I even asked my father about the details and asked him to help get more “information” about her – and he followed through to my surprise. He brought home the booklets – and I knew that some day – some how, I would have one.

I do not want this blog to turn into a True Confessions outlet for aging baby boomers, especially for this one = “me.” But I got to tell you – I got to tell someone. I have to get this off my mind – as it has been a terrible burden all these years. So here goes – please forgive me. I hope you understand. But if you will see – if you just look at what I had to go through – and then to now to know it is all over, well, it is a sad day indeed.

All I will have are the memories of her – unless….maybe, just maybe it could still happen. Sure, even though I am getting older, it could still happen – Enough! Let me just tell you what I am talking about -

I am talking about the Pontiac GTO. There – I did it.

  This is image from the  NY Times article and story online (see link above).

From 1965 to 1970 it was a torrid affair. You see it was like this: the whole time was a whirlwind – so many huge – monumental events going on – Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy assassinated, then Woodstock, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Kent State shootings, more tragedy in the Vietnam War, and then it all kind of faded away – like Richard Nixon.

The seventies kicked in – and I moved on. And instead of a GTO, I ended up with a old Jeep Wagoneer that my grandfather “loaned” to me. But hey, it had a V-8 and 4×4 – even though it had rolled {with my grandfather in it} downed the side of a mountain in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina somewhere (that is why I inherited it). But I will never forget.

Sure, I still feel the guilt and the lust – even today. All that horsepower – and gas-guzzling greed. I am sorry to say that – I – as a card-carrying member of anything “green” – I am a backslider on this one thing. I know – I know. It’s one big carbon footprint and its a gas hog and its a holdover from the old days of American metal and petrodollar nostalgia. What can I say? In my dreams I would mad max this GTO from hell and back (along with some extra gas tanks). So while you drive your hybrids and other vehicles that run on ethanol or cooking oil or on batteries or goes down the road powered by sail on your roof and the wind – I am guilty. I confess.

I want (notice the ego-driven – self-centered – narcissistic angle here) to drive – just once (or maybe a few times) – a REAL car that gets sucky gas mileage – that throws you back against the seat with G-force from a souped up V-8 – and can “turn it up, Wind it up, blow it out, GTO” (see Ronny and the Daytonas and the YouTube Video).

Now back in the day, I did date a young woman who had a 1970 Chevy El Camino SS (can still hear the song Mama Kin by Aerosmith blasting away as she drove that that rocket with all the confidence of a NASCAR pro – from zero to 100 mph in about a quick kiss) and of course I fell in love – again (with her and the car – but alas – she then told me it really belonged to her “crazy SOB ex-husband” – holy crap ! – now she tells me).

But no matter what ——-  it is still the Pontiac GTO and here she is – in two versions. 1969 and 1970.

Oh man – does anybody have one for sale out there ? – will trade all of my articles, books, tenure, rank, class notes, first born, sibs, office chair, URL domain, committee work, blog site, and some old LPs - 

  1969

  1970

thanks, Scott D. Wright

Talking About My Degeneration: a Manifesto to End the Jackassery of Cohortism

Don’t know Jack Shit* about our Generations:
Degenerational Warfare and a Manifesto to End the Jackassery of Cohortism

Jack Shit* From Urban Dictionary (.com) - Nothing, or something equivalent to nothing. Jack shit has the remarkable property that its absence and presence are identical. Typically used with or without a negative to describe a total lack of knowledge, value, or significance. Its use carries a strong negative connotation which can express frustration, disdain, ignorance, or other negative qualities. {see also SFA)

As a general rule, generalisations are stupid. And the most stupid generalisations are those based on race and on religion. But No.3 in the stupidity list is generational generalisations.
(David Dale, The Sydney Morning Herald, reviewing the book by Ryan Heath, Please Just F* Off, It’s Our Turn Now (Pluto Press)).

Cohortism: All can be explained by generational membership; and that the selected few – exemplifies the “group” (fallacy; fail; lazy; and ignorant).

—————————————————————————————————-

I guess I’m going to test the “roguishness” of this blog site by jumping into the hot zone of generational labels and “who is better than the other generation,” and what generation is God’s gift to the cosmos, and which generation supposedly created evil (in all of its manifestations) and what generation did this and did that, what generation is bestest, which generation bought the most shoes and which generation screwed up the election, and which generation can’t find their ass, and which generation invented the internet, and which generation is best known for its hypocrisy.

  

Furthermore, I hope to start some momentum to begin the process of dismantling, destroying, disintegrating and disassociating every label ever created (and cranked out like the old-school machine that produced plastic strips of peel off labels –

  

“Hey kid’s it’s the Acme label maker- just pull the trigger and create your own label!”) for any of the so-called generational groups that have – that do – or purport to soon exist in this country. 

 I have had it with these insipid and mindless labels and the marketing and media hacks that latch on to the labels as though they were the powerful axioms or go on treat generational labels as though they were infallible rules of causation. (e.g, WWII = automatic sainthood; Boomer = sick puppy; Gen X = less than zero; Millennials = indulgent little shits).

Let me just say that these labels are, if anything, examples of weak correlation (at best). Oh, hell…Let me just say it – it’s all a load of crap.

I think that these labels are convenient window-dressing for profiteers, marketing consultants, disgruntled pundits, the captains of enterprise, political wonks, and those reporters who excel in jassackery in order to create glib sound bites passing for “insight” and then they deliberately ramp-up the reckless “blame game” on social ills and cultural deficits on a group of people (take your pick) roughly born around the same time in order to “explain” whatever phenomena the producers of the shows want to “investigate.” 

And because the actual “truth” or the evidence, or the data, or the research findings are either to difficult to collect, to hard to find, or to complicated to interpret, the default is to blame the “generation” (preferably not your own – of course) ahead of you >>>>”me”<<<<< or behind you. The generational labels that drive the dumb-downed newscasts and the sophomoric analyses of patterns, trends, projections, and prognoses are based on as much science as the utterances of the Cumean Sybil breathing the vapors or the prophecy one can get from the Ouija board. In other words, not much.

I know, I know…you like to place your “things” and “stuff” in tidy little Tupperware boxes and place them just so on your shelf –or get your eggs just so in every little pocket - 

  

but that dog won’t hunt with capturing the nuances of the vast and diverse world of individuals born between any given year “x” and year “y”.

So I am saying we can do better than that. So lets review the cranked out labels so far:

Lost Generation, G.I. Generation, Silent generation, boom generation, 13^th generation (see Strauss and Howe, 1997); New Worlders, Hard Timers, Good Warriors, Luck Few, Baby Boomers, Generation X, New Boomers (see Carlson, 2008; Zuehlke, 2008); greatest generation, boomers, millennials, post-boomers, leading-edge boomers, shadow boomers, echo boomers, Millennium Generation, the Net Generation, Generation NeXt, Generation Y2K, the Sunshine Generation, the Bittersweet Generation, the Little Boomers, the Digital Generation, Generation Y, Generation WHY, Generation Now, Generation Jones, Generation Z, Generation C, Facebook Generation, Cuspers, Texting Generation…etc. etc. ad infinitum >>>>>>>>>

Enough! Cease and desist. Put the label maker down slowly…Step back and let me see your hands…

But before we pull the plug on these brainless labels, I have – (and I can’t help myself) – to get the scholarly “wooden stake” out and drive it into the heart of the worst label of all. I mean I need to kill it once and for all – I am loading the chamber with a silver bullet.

Time to pull the trigger on the label “baby boomers” – once and for all – and forever.  I know… it won’t be easy.

The beast is big (48 million – some say 80 million) and it is hard to put down (they just don’t get old and die). For example, DYK:

In 2009, the oldest of the baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964 (so says the US Census Bureau) will turn 63 years old.
{Will we still love them, when they turn 64?}

78.2 million: Estimated number of baby boomers, as of July 1, 2005.
{see Boomer Death Counter below – for boomer haters, the number can only get lower; for boomers it also means the boom is f-f-fading away (also see below)}

7,918: Number of people turning 60 each day in 2006, according to projections. That amounts to 330 every hour.

50.8%: Percentage of women baby boomers in 2005.

57.8 million: Number of baby boomers living in 2030, according to projections; 54.9 percent would be female. That year, boomers would be between ages 66 and 84.

——————-

Now wonder, many are worried about the future. That’s a lot of older baby boomers milling about – doing what?

Now some have told the “boomers” to “Please Just F* Off, It’s Our Turn Now” (Ryan Heath) which is ironic, given that a “boomer” song, “It’s My Generation” offered a kinder, gentler proclamation (“Why don’t you all f-fade away”) – and some even have a “boomer death watch” underway (“http://www.boomerdeathcounter.com/”). Yes, it’s true – there is a digital ticking away of the seconds to when the last scum-sucking bottom-feeder boomers go extinct. Some idiots have proclaimed that because we will see the helicopter lift off and carry away Bush to wherever and then is replaced by President Obama – the boomers time is over. Right…think again. Look at the Cabinet positions- look at the advisors – the ages – the generations are mixed, diverse, and I predict Obama will transcend the use of generational labels as “excuses” or “causality” and reach out to all – in order to address the challenges ahead.

All of this dancing on the grave of boomers is not only premature; it is a classic example of cohortism (yeah, I know another –ism),
which is just plain dumbass {ignoranus.}

Cohortism is, “any attitude, action, or institutional structure which subordinates a person or group because of their cohort affiliation [or identity} or any assignment of roles in society purely on the basis of cohort membership." 

Now there is a difference between “cohort humor” and “cohortism.”

For example, here is cohort humor (from The Onion):

Long-Awaited Baby Boomer Die-Off To Begin Soon, Experts Say

WASHINGTON, DC - Census Bureau deputy director Arthur Clausewitz said at a press conference, “… the Great Boomer Die-Off should hit full stride in approximately 2015, when the oldest members of the Baby Boom generation—born during the last days of World War II—turn 70.

"Before long, tens of millions of members of this irritating generation will achieve what such Boomer icons as Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Timothy Leary and John Kennedy already have: death. Before long, we will live in a glorious new world in which no one will ever again have to endure tales of Joan Baez's performance at Woodstock." Despite his enthusiasm, Clausewitz cautioned that the Great Boomer Die-Off will not be without its downside. "Our nation must steel itself for one vast, final orgy of Boomer self-obsession as we are hit with a bewildering onslaught of magazine pictorials, hardcover coffee-table books and multi-part, Motown-soundtracked television specials looking back on the glory days of the 1960s," Clausewitz said. "But once this great, final spasm of nostalgia passes, the ravages of age will take its toll on boomer self-indulgence, and the curtain will at long last fall on what is regarded by many as the most odious generation America has ever produced."

---------------------------

Pretty funny and dripping with sarcasm. Is it the truth? – Nahhhhhhh.

So, if I call you a “greedy geezer”, “yuppie”, “slacker”, “overachieving brown-noser product of helicopter parents”, “a premature textualator” – I believe that would be an indicator of prejudice/ bias against someone for thinking that the ONE INDIVIDUAL is representation of the whole, which as we all know - “you know how ‘they’ can be.’ It’s when inductive reasoning forgets the reason-ing.

And while it is evidence-based that some “boomers” are complete selfish hypocritical materialistic assholes…guess what? There are some of those in almost every group you can think of. So we need to do this>>>> We need to dismantle and de-construct the labels and we start the process with the oxymoronic label “baby-boomers.” First of all, they are not babies (anymore) and there sure as hell ain’t no “boom" either.

The “babies” are old enough to get ready to collect big-time from the various entitlement programs (Social Security) from (ironically) another set of “babies” (see other cohorts – aka "young’uns"). And the “boom” that was associated with high fertility rates – well that was the parents (the "square" generation) that did the “booming” – and now the “boomers” are - to a lot of cynics and generational war-mongers - “the bummers.” The bloom is off the boom. And perhaps the bummers, oops, I mean, boomers deserve the critique. But again the cohort is simply too massive, too diverse, and too un-lable-ready to box them all up- and send it Fed-Ex to hell.

So - No baby – no boom – no luck – no way – no how – no deal – no-thing.

Then what? If they ain’t boomers, then what do we call them?

Ahhh, Time for a cool change. Let’s call them ….Americans.

Yep, that’s right.

I am calling you out. This group, this cohort, this “generation.” No more aging hipsters, mo more “zoomers”, no more of the hypocrisy, you are not the greatest, the greater, or even “above average.” You don’t vote a certain way, you don’t dress a certain way, and even “your” music is the result of hybrid historical influences. I propose that we (the so-called boomers) have not done a damn thing yet.

And therein lies the promise to finally make amends. This country deserves much more from aging Americans. 

            Time to grow up – and give back.

We are here – and now – for something bigger and better than “us.”

Every younger citizen is watching – and learning. I hereby declare that all baby boomers have shed their skin.
All boomers have had the epiphany – “Holy shit…It’s not about me…it’s about all of us.” {the rest of you say - "It's about time!} 

All boomers will not use the label “boomers” or use any other low-wattage labels for generations [starting…………….. NOW !]

I promise you it will be painless, you won’t feel at thing – except for - good.

Okay, here we go….E pluribus unum – out of many, one.

Out of all ages – together.

Ask not what all the other generations can do for you — ask what you can do for all the generations.
No- I am not getting out of the way. I ain’t fading and I sure as hell am not going to F*ck Off. 

Billy Joel had a song – a sort of ****** anthem,  “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – Well, we need to start one now. Forget retirement. Time to re-create and reinvent. Since we do not know Jack Shit – why don’t we stir some up? Turn that shit up – Make this a better place – not because YOU are going to live longer, rather because you want them – all of them – to live better. You think this is bull ? You want a concrete example ? 
go to: Hands On – Greater Portland, OR : http://www.handsonportland.org/HomePage/index.php/home.html

Step up. Create a legacy for the future – not yours – but for them. If not, the only song we will hear, will be: “Talking about my degeneration.”

Thanks,

Scott D. Wright (born in 1955 – only a hundred years later after the publication of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass – how is that for feeling old?)

Remembering and Forgetting in Later Life – Section II

Remembering and Forgetting in Later Life:
The Gift and Curse of Mnemosyne and Lethe

Section II – Biomedical Perspectives

When he became aware of his first bouts of forgetfulness, he had recoursed to a tactic he had heard about from one of his teachers at the medical School:
“The man who has no memory makes one out of paper.” —Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera 

Remembering the past is a form of mental time travel; it frees us from the constraints of time and space and allows us to move freely along completely different dimensions.—Eric R. Kandel, In Search of Memory,  2006

The literature in relation to memory in journals on aging are represented by studies on iconic memory, episodic memory, semantic memory, working memory, spatial memory, discourse memory, memory failure, memory complaint, visual integration, processing implicit information, reaction times, and then there is what I consider the ultimate expression of scientific discovery in this domain – “everyday memory” – Does that mean there might be an “every other day” memory? Or an ‘every now and then memory’? Or how about ‘special day memory?” Oh man, what’s next? –

So here I am writing a blog about on memory issues while listening to a guest speaker on the topic of cognitive impairments in older adults. I am writing this blog while observing a series of colorful Powerpoint slides flash on the screen at the front of the room. My prefrontal cortex (working memory) is processing the information, as we visually glide (via the presentation slides) into the cerebellum and I am taking notes (skill) and then we move into some MRI images (sagittal, axial, and coronal) then we are viewing the medial temporal lobes (MTL) appear: the cingulum – cornus ammonis 3 and 3 (CA2 and CA3), entorhinal region, and then the dentate gyrus.

And then we are looking at the hippocampus, long-term memory, the mother lode, the gateway, the pearly gates. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, damage to the hippocampus usually results in profound difficulties in forming new memories, like Leonard in the movie Memento, anterograde amnesia (but more on that in a later posting in this series). Yet, some say there is evidence of neurogenesis in the hippocampus, yet there is atrophy with Alzheimer’s disease, and there are two of them for each hemisphere: hippocampi. The sea monster, the sea horse, St. Augustine of Hippo, the river horse, Hippopatomus, Greek, Patmos, St. John, wort, Hypericum perforatum, serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline (norepinephrine), which leads to a brief discussion of LeDoux’s new book, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, and I am lost in a world of biomedicalists. And here I am: the self. My self: is a space between neurons? My life story in a nutshell, almond shaped, the amygdala, uh mig’ dull uh, I’m a dullah, Don De Lillo, Armadillo, Amarillo, I am synapses, therefore I am. Oh come on, life at the molecular level is fascinating, I agree, but what part of the elephant are they touching? I want to step back and get out of the microscopic. Enough of the PowerPoint slides of the axons and dendrites. I need to get some air. There needs to be a balance here – at least for me. So, I’m turning to Shakespeare for contrast (as the speaker continues on…)

Let us briefly review what Shakespeare has written in relation to this topic, and we have Prospero and Miranda from The Tempest engaged in dialogue (as the speaker goes to the next slide).

            Prospero:            Canst thou remember

                                            A time before we came unto this cell?
                                            I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not
                                           Out three years old.


            Miranda:            Certainly, sir, I can.


            Prospero:         By what? by any other house or person?
                                        Of any thing the image tell me, that
                                        Hath kept thy remembrance.


            Miranda:          ‘Tis far off,
                                          And rather like a dream than an assurance
                                          That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
                                          Four of five women once that tended me?

            Prospero:          Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
                                          That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
                                           In the dark backward and abysm of time?

But as I consider that mental escape from the presentation, I am back to listening about structural equation modeling in the presentation – and so I am reminding myself of the Faustian bargain. It was the caveat of Mephistopheles all wrapped up in a Latent Difference Score Model for episodic and semantic memory where the speaker is citing the authors Lovden, Ronnlund, Wahlin, Backman, Nyberg, and Nilsson (2004),

Lovden, M. Ronnlund, M., Wahlin, A., Backman, L., Nyberg, L., & Nilsson, L. (2004), “The extent of stability of change in eipisodic and semantic memory in old age: Demographic predictors of level and change.” The Journals of Gerontology. Psychological Sciences, 59B: p130-134.

By which their study demonstrated that,

…longitudinal configural and metric invariance of a declarative memory model, a strong association between changes in semantic and episodic memory, a tendency for dedifferentiation, evidence for small but reliable interindividual differences in change in declarative memory, and higher stability coefficients for semantic than for episodic memory. Together, these findings depict relatively high degrees of structural stability and stability of interindividual differences in declarative memory performance in a sample of older adults relatively free pathology (p.133).

            WTF? Excuse me? Can I have that in English?

Okay, I can live with that. But let me get this straight. And so I have all the parts in my hand. Right? I then now have many empirical indicators of memory and change over time. I can even rest easy with all of the statistical tests, χ² , root mean square error of approximation, factor loadings, stability coefficients, skewness and kurtosis, but yet something is still missing. It is the essence of aging, the flesh and blood (in the age of reason) and time, and memory. Yes, all parts are there . . . minus only the spiritual band, the living threads (thanks Goethe !)

But the speaker goes on to the next slide and yet another citation: it is from the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, and on the topic of “Self-Discipline and Self-Consciousness Predict Subjective Memory in Older Adults.”

Pearman, A. & Storandt, M., “Self-Discipline and Self-Consciousness Predict Subjective memory in Older Adults.” Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, Vol. 60B, No. 3 (2005): p153-157.

OK , this is slightly more engaging, I suppose. But then I am wandering off again, and thinking of The Mysterious Flame by Umberto Eco which is about a bookdealer that loses his memory, and there is also another book: Rules for Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey.

Uh oh…back to the slides again. What do we have here? A quote: “Age-associated cognitive-impairment has been described in a variety of species, including rats, macaque monkeys and humans (Sandi, 2007).

Sandi, C. (2007). Memory impairments associated with stress and aging. In  F. Bermudez-Rattoni (Ed.) Neural Plasticity and memory: From Genes to Brain Imaging. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press (Taylor & Francis).

And then, I hear the magic words (the signal we are almost done) from the speaker: “In summary, let me present the findings from the latest study…” which is from  The Journal of Neuroscience, November 26, 2008, 28(48):12820-12824. 

After hearing the title and authors: A Neural Mechanism Underlying Memory Failure in Older Adults; W. Dale Stevens,  Lynn Hasher, Kimberly S. Chiew, and Cheryl L. Grady – the audience is given a brief overview (I guess it is from the abstract):

Older adults have reduced memory, primarily for recall, but also for recognition (Craik and McDowd, 1987), particularly for unfamiliar faces (Bartlett et al., 1989). Behavioral studies have shown that age-related memory declines are due in part to distraction from impaired inhibition of task-irrelevant input during encoding (Healey et al., 2008). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to uncover the sources of memory deficits associated with aging. To date, this work has focused on successful encoding, while the neural correlates of unsuccessful encoding are unknown. Here, we provide novel evidence of a neural mechanism underlying memory failures exclusively affecting older adults. Whereas both younger and older adults showed reduced activation of brain regions important for encoding (e.g., hippocampus) during unsuccessful encoding, only older adults showed increased activity in brain regions mediating distraction (e.g., auditory cortex) and in left prefrontal cortex. Further, these regions were functionally connected with medial parietal areas, previously identified as default mode regions (Raichle and Snyder, 2007), which may reflect environmental monitoring. Our results suggest that increased distraction from task-irrelevant input (auditory in this case), associated with the unfamiliar and noisy fMRI environment, may increase environmental monitoring. This in turn could hinder suppression of default mode processing, resulting in memory failures in older adults. These findings provide novel evidence of a brain mechanism underlying the behavioral evidence that impaired inhibition of extraneous input during encoding leads to memory failure in older adults and may have implications for the ubiquitous use of fMRI for investigating neurocognitive aging.

OK, I like the biomedical approach and I find the fMRI to be a damn interesting piece of testing equipment, but then I keep turning back to other complementary perspectives on this topic – for balance and for insight.  So I drift from the microscopic >> back to the macroscopic. For example, Landesberg has argued, (at the time of her dissertation project in 1996 and then later in the publication of her book in 2004)

^ς Alison Landesberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture (Columbia University Press, 2004).

that past experiences would become commoditized and offered to all and anyone. In other words, a sort of a cafeteria-style memory buffet. She proposed the notion of an emergent “prosthetic memory” in the lives of citizens of a technology-saturated society. There would no direct experience necessary as historical memories could be vicariously experienced so as to reflect an enriched phenomenological thrill ride. And movies have been one the most efficient and stylized version of reinventing and repackaging history, as Forrest Gump was there in Vietnam, talking with JFK and LBJ, or at a Black Panther party or at the Watergate hotel, playing football with Bear Bryant and ping-pong with the Chinese, and when it was all said and done with his shrimp-boat philosophy (shit happens!), the process went right down the rabbit hole with the simulacra of the computer-generated dream world of the blue pill that you swallowed with Blade Runner and Total Recall and with Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Stone’s JFK and Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. The boundary of memories – what really happended – had become blurred, and many were not even sure if it happened or not.

WYTYSIWYTYG = What You Think You See Is What You Think You Get.

Was it authentic or real? You better say it right up front, get the caveat emptor explicit,  just like The Dramatics (think Soul Train) sang about people made of plastic, wood, stone, and lies in Whatcha see is whatcha get. Or is it? Were the memories real, embellished, enhanced, or fabricated?

 It is no wonder then – that a book titled Try to Remember: Psychiatry’s Clash over Meaning, Memory, and Mind (McHugh, 2008 – Dana Press) has emerged to investigate certain trends in psychotherapy (in the 1990s) where a number of patients began accusing their parents and other close relatives of sexual abuse, as a result of false “recovered memories” urged onto them by therapists practicing new methods of treatment.  McHugh explains why trendy diagnoses and misguided treatments have repeatedly taken over psychotherapy. He recounts his participation in court battles that erupted over diagnoses of recovered memories and the frequent companion diagnoses of multiple-personality disorders. He argues that both the public and psychiatric professionals must raise their standards for psychotherapy, in order to ensure that the incorrect designation of memory as the root cause of disorders does not occur again.

So as we “try to remember” what happended (in oue own way), try to remember the song too ——- OK aging baby-boomers – Can you?

The song was written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt composed the music.

Try To Remember…… according to the Wikipedia reference:

Try to Remember was originally sung by Jerry Orbach in the Original Off Broadway production of The Fantasticks. “Try To Remember” made the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart three times in 1965 in versions by Ed Ames, Roger Williams and the Brothers Four.

1965 ? – Holy shit – I was ten years old. Over forty years ago – and here it is almost the start of another year 2009 – and onward we go >>>> 

And since it is now the month of December (2008), how fitting that a section of the lyrics captures the season of winter,

Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,

Although you know the snow will follow.

Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,

Without a hurt the heart is hollow….

As for me – I sort of remember it…well, barely. 

Maybe I didn’t want to remember that song, maybe it was too “old” for me at the time – perhaps it kind of reminded me of my grandmother. Or perhaps The Beatles were overwhelming the music landscape at the time – at least for me. Maybe at my age I can select the memories that are simply necessary – or at least significant than others. 

And then check this out: 

 It turns out there’s a scientific reason why older people tend to see the past through rose-coloured glasses. Medical researchers have identified brain activity that causes older adults to remember fewer negative events than their younger counterparts. These neuroscientists have discovered that older people use their brains differently than younger people when it comes to storing memories, particularly those associated with negative emotions.

Duke University Medical Center (2008, December 20). Aging Brains Allow Negative Memories To Fade. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 20, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216104025.htm

This is why I find great affinity in examining the process of aging from many different perspectives – the interdiscplinary approach. Next up we will take a look at memory and forgetting in literature, music, and the arts. Stay tuned….

Thanks, Scott D. Wright