1,000 Unforgettable Senior Moments Read online

  Updated Second Edition

  1,000*

  unforgettable

  Senior

  Moments

  by Tom . . . uh . . . Friedman

  *Of Which We Could Remember Only 254

  Workman Publishing • New York

  “Memory is the thing you forget with.”

  —Alexander Chase, Perspectives

  To Christy, Corey, and Jonathan

  Contents

  Dedication

  Introduction

  1,000 Unforgettable Senior Moments

  Bibliographical Note

  Acknowledgments

  Photo Credits

  About the Author

  INTRODUCTION

  It’s been ten years since the first edition of 1,000* Unforgettable Senior Moments *Of Which We Could Remember Only 246 was published, and its success since then has surprised everyone—except, that is, for me, although I can’t quite remember why. But no matter. Since that time, a new crop of absentminded folks has drifted past the point of denial to join the rest of us. So we’ve created a second edition. Really, what better way to celebrate this sobering rite of passage than a truly funny and reassuring book filled with historical anecdotes about the memory lapses of the rich, famous, and wonderfully eccentric?

  If you’re just joining the club, take comfort. You are not alone—not by a long shot.

  Those of you who already have read the first edition may be wondering, why should you bother with a second one? Well, first, there are dozens of new anecdotes to chuckle over. And second, you’ve surely forgotten the classic ones we’ve kept and updated, and now you can enjoy them all over again.

  Above all, this is the perfect book for anyone who is unable to conjure up the first or last name of the person who just came up and said, “It’s so great to see you again!”

  It’s the book that’s small enough to carry with you at all times so that you can open it at any page and see that countless others have experienced major mental lapses that make your own . . . well, hardly worth remembering.

  If you’re in your sixties, as I am, the first thing you may want to know about senior moments is: Are they really senior? I’m often asked this, and although I can’t recall what I’ve said, I do have my notes, which suggest that the answer is yes, no, and maybe.

  This is the perfect book for anyone who is unable to conjure up the first or last name of the person who just came up and said, “It’s so great to see you again!”

  The most familiar type of forgetting is absentmindedness, in which information is never properly encoded in your memory, if it’s encoded at all. Consider this: If you learn a new piece of information (say, that the average blue whale can grow up to 100 feet long, weigh as much as 200 tons, and eat upward of 4 tons of krill a day if it’s especially hungry), but you don’t have a reason to use it soon afterward and imprint it in your memory, it may never stick.

  As you grow older, you tend to remember the more important stuff and don’t bother as much as you used to with the rest (unless, of course, you know a blue whale personally). That’s why I like to think of senior moments as evidence of having a more discriminating mind. (You can try out this excuse the next time your loved ones get exasperated with you.)

  But these lapses in memory can also be “junior moments” as well as senior ones. After all, teenagers can lose one jacket after another, making their parents crazy. They can study all week for a test and then forget what they studied and fail miserably.

  But it is true that as we get older, we do seem to suffer bouts of forgetfulness more often. Certainly we’re more conscious of our forgetfulness as we age, whereas kids tend to shrug it off.

  There are also enormous differences among individuals in their ability to remember information, no matter their age. A 70-year-old can have a better memory than an 18-year-old. When my grandmother was 94, she could recall every student she taught in a Hungarian high school seventy-five years before, while I could not remember where I parked my car. West 88th Street in Manhattan? Boston? Budapest?

  So getting older doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting everything. That’s the good news. But here, alas, is the bad news: There is another type of forgetting called “transience,” which does occur more often as the years pass by. A number of studies have shown that seniors in general have more difficulty remembering information that they’ve been asked to learn than college students do. Even when older people recall information as well as younger folks, their memories fade faster. And they also have more trouble remembering the precise details of something, even when they still recall the gist of it.

  I like to think of senior moments as evidence of having a more discriminating mind.

  There’s another variant of forgetting that can be age-related as well. It occurs when something has been stored in your memory but you can’t retrieve it when you want to. For some of us, this is the most diabolical senior moment of all—the information that’s on “the tip of your tongue.” Scientists, who generally are an un-poetic lot, call this “blocking,” and sadly, it happens more often among older people than younger ones; more often among 40-year-olds than 20-year-olds; and more often among 70-year-olds than 40-year-olds. These senior moments really are senior.

  But if, after learning this, you’re tempted to devote a great deal of time, energy, and money to trying to improve your memory significantly as you age, may I recommend my own approach, which is far easier and cheaper? Just mumble “It’s so nice to see you” when cornered by someone whose name you can’t recall, and avoid at all costs playing Trivial Pursuit, chess, and poker.

  Look at it this way: If you can’t recall what keys are for, you have a big problem and need professional help right away. But if you simply can’t remember where you placed them, you might as well laugh it off, which is what I try to do.

  This book will definitely help you laugh it off. And here’s the best part: You can read it over and over again and it will seem as fresh and funny as the day you bought it.

  Embrace your senior moments! Just don’t try to remember them.

  —T. F.

  WAIT, WAIT, HOW ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT?

  Texas Governor Rick Perry, on a quest for the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination, had a senior moment setback in a televised debate while millions of people watched. When he set out to name three federal agencies he had pledged to eliminate if he were in the White House, he was able to come up with only two: the Commerce and Education departments, completely forgetting the Department of Energy. Finally, after straining to remember, he gave up with a simple and somewhat poignant “Oops.” How fitting, then, that just four years later, in 2016, Perry was tapped by Donald Trump to guide the nation’s energy policy as head of what the Texan once reviled and sought to destroy: the “Department That Cannot Be Recalled.”

  HEY, IT COULD HAVE BEEN FOR ASTROPHYSICS

  Singer Nicki Minaj was a winner at the 2015 BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards, but for what, exactly? Accepting the Viewers’ Choice Award, she seemed to begin her acceptance speech, trophy in hand, but then stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “What was this award for?”

  EXERCISE? FORGET IT

  In her nineties and still going strong, actress Betty White spoke in 2010 of the ultimate senior moments exercise regimen that was keeping her fit: “I have a two-story house and a bad memory,” she explained. “I’m up and down those stairs all the time [asking], ‘What did I come up here for again?’”

  MAYBE THE ALIENS WERE IN THE OVEN


  Astronomers using Australia’s most famous radio telescope believed they may well have discovered evidence of alien life when they picked up a distinctive signal at the same time every day. It was only seventeen years later, in 2015, that they remembered to check a civilization a lot closer to home. The signal was coming from a microwave oven used by staff members to heat up their lunches.

  CERTAINLY NOT LIKE THOSE HEATHENS

  In the early 1950s, during a debate on the Middle East problem, Warren Austin, an American diplomat and U.S. delegate to the United Nations, sternly advised Jews and Arabs to “sit down and settle their differences like Christians.”

  WE DIDN’T PLAN ON CHANGING CLOTHES, ANYWAY

  In 2015, two Americans in their seventies decided to sail their yacht, Nora, across the Atlantic from Norway to the United States. Unfortunately, they had to be rescued nine times before they even left Europe. The men insisted that they were perfectly competent and merely the victims of bad luck. But one particular mishap, in Cornwall, England, came not while they were sailing but while they were tied up in the harbor. It seems they absentmindedly left a candle burning in the yacht when they went ashore to pick up some groceries. It fell over, as candles in boats tend to do, and set their spare clothes on fire.

  BUT THOSE STATES ARE NEXT TO EACH OTHER, RIGHT?

  When Donald Trump spoke disparagingly of Hillary Clinton’s running mate, he must have forgotten everything he learned in fifth-grade geography. He insisted in a televised speech, “Her running mate, Tim Kaine, who by the way did a terrible job in New Jersey. . . . He was not very popular in New Jersey, and he still isn’t.” Kaine, however, was the highly popular governor of Virginia, not New Jersey. It was Chris Christie, a fervent backer of Donald Trump, who was the (not very popular) governor of New Jersey.

  BREAKING NEWS THAT’S ALREADY BROKEN!

  There’s nothing like senior moments that are broadcast live by an absentminded production staff. Here are just some of the alerts that news departments have put at the bottom of our TV screens: “Space Shuttle traveling nearly 18 times the speed of light!” (CNN); “Memorial Day Weekend: Buckle Up, Slow Down & Drink & Drive” (KARE 11, Minneapolis–St. Paul); and our personal favorite, “Fire destroyed by home” (Fox 5, Las Vegas).

  NEXT YOU’LL BE ASKING ME TO PAY FOR THE LAST SUPPER!

  When director Franco Zeffirelli explained that the high cost of the television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth was due in part to the salaries of the twelve actors who were hired to play the twelve apostles, producer Sir Lew Grade experienced a severe memory glitch. “Twelve? Who needs twelve?” he thundered. “Couldn’t we make do with six?”

  SU CASA ES MI CASA

  Columbia University philosopher Irwin Edman once visited the home of a colleague. At 2 a.m. Edman’s colleague began to yawn pointedly. When Edman didn’t take the hint, the man said, “Irwin, I hate to put you out, but I have a nine o’clock class tomorrow morning.” “Good Lord!” Irwin replied, “I thought you were in my house!”

  WAIT, I CHANGED MY MIND—MAKE THAT GRUEL

  The Marquis de Condorcet had what seemed to be a good idea for escaping the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. He dressed up as a peasant in ragged clothes and took off. Just before he reached the French border, he stopped at an inn full of hungry locals and, completely forgetting his disguise, ordered an extravagant omelet made with a dozen eggs. Instead of enjoying his meal, he was dragged away to prison.

  BEATS “HEY, YOU!”

  Because he couldn’t remember anyone’s name, Chuck Berry called everyone Jack. Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was once asked about her equally bad memory, replied, “Dahling, how do you think the ‘dahling’ thing got started?”

  THE FIRST ANNUAL G. K. CHESTERTON AWARD FOR ABSENTMINDEDNESS GOES TO . . . G. K. CHESTERTON!

  The notoriously absentminded and disorganized British writer G. K. Chesterton was devoted to his mother. When he became engaged, he shared the happy news by writing a long letter to her. It would have been an even more thoughtful gesture had his mother not already been sitting in the same room when he wrote it.

  WELL AT LEAST IT COOLED HIM OFF

  During the 2002 Formula One season, racecar driver Pedro de la Rosa was far from happy. His modified Jaguar was too slow, difficult to drive, and always breaking down. But it was the United States Grand Prix race in Indianapolis that truly did him in. After lagging behind the field, his car caught fire, forcing the incensed driver to jump out. A track official then rushed over and told de la Rosa to hop over a small wall to ensure his safety as other cars zoomed by. Still fuming over his car’s performance, de la Rosa angrily complied, only to discover that the race marshal had forgotten to mention one tiny detail. On the other side of the wall was a small river, into which de la Rosa promptly fell.

  BETTER YET, HAVE HIM CALL ME

  One evening the German dramatist and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who was completely lost in thought, realized he had forgotten his house key. When he knocked on his front door, a servant looked out the window and, not recognizing Lessing in the dark, called out, “The professor is not at home,” to which Lessing replied, “Oh, very well. No matter.” He then turned around and started walking away, saying: “Tell him I’ll call another time.”

  COMING NEXT: HOW TO HOTWIRE A CAR WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR KEYS

  When politicians have senior moments, it usually goes badly. Certainly that was the case with Oakland, California, Mayor Jean Quan. It must have slipped her mind that a city plagued by burglaries might be sensitive about anything that would improve the skills of would-be criminals. In 2013, her online newsletter promoted a class on how to pick locks. The explanation that the class was intended for people who absentmindedly misplaced their keys did not sit too well with voters. The class was canceled, and Mayor Quan lost the next election.

  OBJECTION FORGOTTEN!

  Throughout the nation, a plague of senior moments has infiltrated our court system for years. Here’s just one excerpt from an actual court transcript. LAWYER: “This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?” WITNESS: “Yes.” LAWYER: “And in what way does it affect your memory?” WITNESS: “I forget.” LAWYER: “You forget? Can you give us an example of something you’ve forgotten?”

  BUT HE DID REMEMBER IT WAS LONDON

  In October 1944, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas failed to appear at his friend Vernon Watkins’s London wedding, at which Thomas was scheduled to serve as best man. After the ceremony, Watkins received an envelope from Thomas. It contained two letters. The first one apologized for having forgotten the name of the church. The second one apologized for having forgotten to mail the first letter.

  ALTHOUGH NOT AS GREAT AS IT COULD HAVE BEEN

  When Richard Nixon arrived in Paris for the funeral of French President Georges Pompidou in April 1974, his mind must have been elsewhere. At the airport he declared, “This is a great day for France!”

  AND PLEASE GIVE MY REGARDS TO HIS LOVELY WIFE

  Sir Thomas Beecham, who in 1932 founded the London Philharmonic Orchestra, once ran into a distinguished looking woman in the lobby of a hotel. Although he could not remember her name, he thought he knew her. When he engaged her in conversation, he vaguely recollected that she had a brother. Hoping for any clue as to her identity, he asked her how her brother was and whether he was still working at the same job. “Oh, he’s very well,” said Princess Mary about George VI, “and still king.”

  YOU MEAN SHE WASN’T A PHANTOM?

  In 2009, German authorities were desperately trying to find the “phantom of Heilbronn,” a woman thought to have murdered six people over sixteen years, including a police officer in the city of Heilbronn. Traces of her DNA were found at forty different crime scenes in three countries. But because the DNA wasn’t in any national or international database, her identity remained unknown. A puz
zle suitable for Sherlock Holmes? Not exactly. Detectives in Germany, Austria, and France hadn’t stopped to consider alternative theories to that of a wandering killer. As it turned out, the cotton swabs used to collect all the samples had been contaminated. And the “diabolical culprit” was an absentminded 71-year-old medical worker who handled the swabs before sending them off to police labs in the places where the crimes were committed.

  WE WANTED THAT FRESH, OPEN LOOK

  A new jail in Jacksonville, Florida, was about to open to great fanfare in 1995. It cost $35 million to build and was everything a community could want in a prison—except for one minor problem: County officials forgot to order doors for the 195 cells.

  AND IT’S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE I HAD PARENTS, TOO

  Drew Barrymore was asked by Premiere magazine in 2001 whether she hoped to have children. “Definitely!” she said. “I would like to have at least two, because I didn’t have a brother or sister growing up.” Suddenly she paused. “I mean, I have a brother, but we didn’t really spend a lot of time together.” Again, she stopped. “And I have a sister, too.”

  THAT’S OKAY, HE WOULDN’T HAVE FOUND A RAZOR ANYWAY

  Afriend of Ludwig van Beethoven’s named Frederick Stark called on him one morning and found the great but forgetful composer in his bedroom, getting dressed. Curiously, Beethoven’s face was covered with a thick layer of dried soap. He had lathered his face the night before, planning to shave, then forgotten to do so and gone to bed.