Published: December 27, 2008 07:00 pm      

Ed Hungness: What was your name again?

One of the challenges of living in a small town is that you have to remember more names.

Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't go back to living in a big city for anything. When we lived near Chicago, we resided in a small town that was actually a suburb of more than 55,000 people. This "small town" was bordered on all four sides with other "small towns" and it was difficult to tell when you went from one to another.

So here we are living in Fife Lake with 500 other hearty souls and there is plenty of breathing room for all of us.

In the big city, it was a rarity if you ever bumped into anyone you knew. If you went to the hardware store and saw someone you knew it was an unusual day. It isn't odd for us to be in Traverse City, Kingsley or Kalkaska and meet a neighbor or friend. You just say, "fancy meeting you here," and accept it as a normal day's event.

The other interesting change resulting from moving to a small community is that you get to know so many more people. In the big city, you meet people but you don't get to know them. Everything is more anonymous in a big city. You don't know the butcher's name at the grocery store, the teller at the credit union, clerk at the post office or the name of your librarian. I might add that they don't know you either. Maybe everyone in the big city is just too busy to get to know the guy who plows their street or delivers their mail.

With all these newfound acquaintances comes a responsibility. You have to learn their names. Maybe not at first, but sooner or later, after repeated encounters, you feel a little funny or awkward if you greet them and you don't say their name in your salutation. What really gets embarrassing is when you have a chance encounter with two of these "just can't remember their name" people at the same time and you feel obligated to introduce them to each other. What a dreadful position to be in. You just hope that one of them will introduce himself to the other.

Sometimes I see people who I am sure I know and draw a complete blank. I don't even recall from where I know them. That is really a weird feeling. Usually it's a person you haven't had a lot of involvement with but you know them from somewhere. Unfortunately things in the gray matter just aren't clicking into place. You might even say hello to them as your carts pass in the grocery aisle and then you spend the rest of the day trying to piece the puzzle together.

So what is it that causes us these mental lapses? It does seem to happen more often the older we get. It's so common that there's a term for it and we refer to it as a "senior moment."

Being a curious fellow, I decided to look into the matter for a more detailed explanation. Regretfully, I learned that at about age 30 our brain begins to shrink approximately a half percent a year. In case you were wondering, it only weighed about three pounds before it started shrinking. Wouldn't it be great if some other things would shrink too?

Did you know that there are different kinds of memory? From my cursory research, there appears to be three types of memory. One is "procedural memory," which enables us to do the things that we do every day, like eating or throwing a ball. Another is "semantic memory" which allows recalling specific facts like what a hamburger is or remembering the Grand Canyon. Then there is "episodic memory" with which we all have occasional issues. It is the memory that manages experiences like meeting and remembering someone's name or remembering where you left your car keys. So how is it that I can remember how to tie my shoes every morning but I can't remember somebody's name?

The different types of memory are centered in different parts of the brain. The "episodic memory" that helps us remember names and what we had for breakfast is centered in the frontal lobes of the brain and that's the part of the brain that begins to shrink first. All those names and faces are in there. The name of that movie you saw where Tom Hanks, a FED-X employee stranded on a tropical island, is in there someplace. All that information just takes a little longer to remember as we grow older. Our aging hard drive just isn't spinning as fast as it used to.

So what's the answer? Keep working at it. Exercise that brain as you would any other part of your body by staying busy, reading and enjoying every day to the fullest. In the meantime, continue to greet your friends and neighbors with a cheery hello even if their name has only reached the "tip of your tongue." By the way, the name of that Tom Hanks movie, which I never can remember, is "Cast Away."

Ed Hungness and his wife owned their cottage on Fife Lake for six years before moving there after his retirement in 2005. His writing draws from life experiences and a love for the outdoors and northern Michigan. He can be reached at edhungness@yahoo.com or care of the Record-Eagle.