Photographic Memory or Over-Exposure

When I was younger, it seemed that I could remember the vivid details of what I did and where I went.  I had a saying that if I ever went somewhere, I could get back there again no sweat.  It was almost like I could run a video of the events in my head and see the details clearly.  I could also create short word pictures to remind me of the processes that made my life much easier.  There was one place on a very tough computation in the Field Artillery that you would cross the line, change the sign.  Now I can't remember the name of my friends when we meet.  Yes, I am fairly sure that a part of it is the amount of new things that bombard us today and part of it is the aging process.  There was a time that I would rather learn a new program for the computer than use the old one. Now I am thrilled when Turbo-Tax remembers my Social Security number and address. 


On our way back from Winfield to buy the Tractor, we drove through Eldorado,  KS.   Just to remind myself of how little fun I had there, I drove around a little to see if I could find the park.  It took me a little while to get there, and it has changed (after 55 years or so)  but I had a tough time finding where my Grandmother's house was.  I remember it being a big yard that I mowed with a rotary mower and there was a giant garden in the back.  When I drove by it now, it is a store and they had to tear the house down to have enough room in the front to have parking.  The garden area is almost gone and they didn't save the Mulberry tree that I loved as a kid.  I can remember sitting up in that tree and eating mulberries until I was almost too full to climb down. 


As a kid, I remember my Dad telling stories of his time in the Navy in WWII.  There were no combat stories told, just mostly adventures. His war was spent in Barber's Point, Honolulu, HI.  The sad part is that by the time I got old enough to have war stories of my own, I got too busy to busy to sit and talk with him about his adventures in the South Sea's.  By the time things started to slow down enough to have time to talk, Dad's memory was fading and then he was gone.  Over my lifetime, I could not just sit and watch golf or bowling on TV. I loved to play baseball but to sit and watch a game was just something I didn't do.  Dad could watch it by the hour.  I sat and watched poker on TV the other day like a big goof.  I guess time and the enormous amounts of knowledge  are finally catching up.


Barbara has been very good to me lately.  She broke down and let me buy a tractor.  Yes, I know part of it is all the projects she has planned for me but so far it has been worth it.  

Moving gravel and dodging trees.

 It is amazing to me that I could watch the front scoop and the Box blade on the back and not hit trees.  the first time I drove down the drive in the Ford, I grazed the side of the tree on the left side..  Crap, another tree I need to remove.   That is 10 tons of gravel or about $280.00 worth I am moving there. 


This morning I was watching TV and the program was about reptiles in Australia.  As long as he was catching lizards and talking about cane toads, I was OK.  He was very carelessly walking through high grass and talking about all the deadly snakes.  He even went so far as to find a "Death Adder" and then poke at it with what looked like a giant pair of tweezers.  I had to turn it off.  I guess my morbid curiosity does have some limits.   


Today the Master Gardeners have a booth at the green fair at the Library.  Barb has been working hard to get it all ready and it never ceases to amaze me how creative she is about educating children.  She has a Fly Fishing tank where the kids lower giant plastic spiders into a pool of flies.  get it?  Fly Fishing?  The spiders have magnets and the flies have paper clips glued on them.  If they catch a fly, they will win a bag of giant sunflower seeds to plant in their garden at home.   I will go over to transport her "garden in a wagon." She has an old radio flyer wagon with a bag of potting soil in it.  She has been dragging it in and out for a month or so.  It can come in when there is a threat of frost.  People that live in apartments could have one out on the balcony and grow herbs. 

Oh well, I hope you can stay with me on the new Blogger.  I had a tough time just finding this post this AM.

MUD