I Forgot to Remember

By Charlie Melton

I sit down on the loveseat and turn on the TV for some midday viewing. I notice the seat doesn’t feel right.

I turn the loveseat over and see a spring is broken. I can fix that with some wire. I think I have some in the junk drawer in the kitchen.
I go into the kitchen and open the drawer. What a mess. I start digging through it hoping to find some wire.

I start emptying the disaster of a drawer. I toss nasty wooden skewers in the trash. Odd paperwork goes into a zip-lock. Odd change goes in the piggy bank. I scrape the hundreds of screws and bolts into a jar, and I’m done. The drawer looks fabulous. I make a sandwich and go back to the living room.

Wait, the loveseat is upside down. What happened in here? Then I remember I went in the kitchen to get wire to use in a repair. It’s a good thing I’m home alone. Nobody will ever know that I forgot what I was doing.

A faulty memory is a scary thing. Every lapse brings a little thought that this is the sign that we’re losing our minds. For me, it’s a harbinger of eventual inability to control my mind. I picture myself wandering aimlessly around town in my bathrobe unable to remember where I live.

Have I told you this before? I don’t remember.

I don’t know about anybody else, but the eventual loss of control of my faculties scares the heck out of me. I’m a well documented control freak and I often say I won’t ride a roller coaster because they won’t let me drive. Control issues also have made my work life what you could call “chaotic”. It’s the same issue with impending memory problems. They mean I won’t have control.

I really became concerned when I overheard an Alzheimer’s patient doing an oral test to determine his level of dementia. He was asked several basic questions about the year, where he was, the name of the President, and other simple things. He got a higher score than I did.

Being a control freak with a big fear of not being able to control my mind or memory I work to overcome or delay impending dementia. The internet is full of techniques to improve mental agility and memory. I’ve probably tried them all at one time or another.

First up is nutrition. Reportedly if you eat certain things your memory will stay and even get better.

Certain oils like olive oil, coconut oil, and fish oil helps the brain. I didn’t notice my memory getting better when I ate the oils, but my bowels noticed the oil intake and kept me well informed.

If you eat lots of berries, nuts, and seeds your memory will improve. Those worked well because I definitely remember they were very tasty in the cakes and pies I put them in.

Certain foods reportedly harm memory. Two of these are coffee and sugar. Let’s just forget about them.

Next, mental exercise is supposed to help the brain. This method is more to my liking.

Reading is good for you. I kind of dig reading, so I do all I can get away with. Recently, I even started reading instruction manuals for items I buy. It helps my brain and keeps me from breaking any more new appliances.

Puzzles and games are good for your mental agility. Crossword puzzles and Sudoku are good. Chess is a good game you can get for free and play on a computer or smart phone. It helps you think systematically. In chess you have to think several moves ahead, which for me is the mental equivalent of running a marathon.

My wife plays those games where you have to find microscopic things in a hodge-podge of unrelated scenery. She’s very good at it, and it must help. She remembers everything I ever did to make her mad.

I try to stave off the imminent loss of faculties, but what if it sneaks up on me? I work in a nursing home. To be honest, I think I work in a nursing home. I could be a resident in a nursing home. I learned a little technique from a family member. It helps me know the difference.

Every day when I get ready to leave work I check to see if I have my car keys in my pocket. If they are, I work there. If they’re not, I no longer drive because I’m a resident. This works for me, except for the day I left my keys on my desk. I had a few minutes of panic until I located them, but I’m good now.

Oh, and don’t ask to borrow my keys. You’re not getting them. I will play chess with you, though.

Fly Your Flag

It may not seem like a big deal. In the aftermath of the shootings in South Carolina almost everyone wants their flag, which is the Confederate battle flag, gone. When the issue first came up, I thought it was a non-issue. It’s the flag of a losing side in a long-ago war. It’s the flag of people that wanted to keep slaves. Since the war, the flag has served racist organizations and “good old boys”. I could care less about having a Confederate flag.

The entire Confederate flag issue is far removed from us, and has no real affect on our lives. Am I correct in that thought? No, I’m not correct.
Then, as I thought about it, how can we dictate another person’s symbols? To some, the Confederate flag stands for the sanctity of the state over the federal government. For others, it’s a sign of Southern pride that they seem to have plenty of. Others see the Confederate flag as a “Dukes of Hazard” type of redneck independence. You may have one because you like the pretty colors and really dig stars and bars.

I’m seeing the Confederate flag as a freedom of speech issue. I have the right to say what I want. You don’t have to like it. I make a statement by what symbols I choose, and that is my right. With the state being made of individuals, if enough want the flag to be their state flag, then it should be so. If you don’t like my speech, or my symbols you can ignore them or go away. It’s your choice.

So major retailers have jumped on the wagon and will no longer sell that flag. We can choose who we buy from, and what we buy. If we feel strongly enough about the issue, we can stop giving our money to businesses that oppose our views.

With all of that being said, it gets tiresome that groups try to dictate what everyone does. It gets tiresome that the thought police have to impose the current political correctness on us. They really do believe that they know what is best, and we are too stupid to make even the most mundane decisions on our own.

The attack on symbols is an attack on people. We are the people under attack.
Most of us hold the American flag dear. It is also under attack. Our favorite activist Louis Farrakhan has already started attacking the stars and stripes. He says that the flag must be “put down” because people have suffered under it even more than they’ve suffered under the Confederate flag.

Some neighborhoods try to restrict the American flag because someone may be offended. Even our local Walmart carries very few of our flags, and usually hides them in the corner in the bowels of the store.

With most of us being Christian, we have a deep reverence for the cross. It has been under attack for as long as I can remember. The people that regulate the rest of us have a pretty good record of limiting cross displays. It’s well documented that every aspect of Christianity is under attack, and that attack on the symbol is just part of it. Even Bibles are forbidden in some venues.

By attacking a person’s symbols, you attempt to outlaw the person. By outlawing symbols you outlaw a certain way of thinking and acting. By outlawing a way of life you eliminate the people that live that way.

I had a sociology professor that taught that when we brought Chinese over to build our railroads, they brought their way of life and their opium. When we finished with them, they were still here and we didn’t like it. We outlawed opium to outlaw Chinese. The same thought processes apply to many of us today. We are slowly being outlawed.

Here’s how I think it should go. Suppose my daughter brings home a guy in a leather jacket with a big swastika tattoo on his neck. I don’t like him on a great number of levels. I tell him I’m offended by him but I don’t hold him down and try to remove his tattoo. He may think I’m a jerk but he doesn’t expect me to learn to like his tattoo. It’s his right to have the tattoo, and my right not to like it. We hopefully go our separate ways and that’s the end of it.

We have to quit giving up our way of life and its symbols. We have a right to be. They have a right to be. As my least favorite son-in-law once told me, “I’m a grown man. You can’t tell me what to do.” He was right, and I admitted it even after I chased him out of my door.
Clint Eastwood nailed it in the movie “Gran Torino” when he said “Get off my lawn”.