©2008 Dave Knechel

The human brain is such an incredible organ. I can’t fathom how deep the mind is, nor how far we can reach into it. The other day, I thought of a really sweet girl I hadn’t seen, heard or thought of in 30 years. Why did this young cutie, all of a sudden, creep into my brain for no apparent reason? I don’t have a clue. Nothing took me back to that time of my life and nothing reminded me of her, but there she was - and I pictured her just as she was - with one of the nicest personalities and the most dazzling smile of all of God’s creatures. I could understand if I had a crush on her at one time, but alas, she was too young for me then. 27 year old men do not date 16 year old girls. Besides, I’m still too old for her and it’s got nothing to do with why I’m writing this.

For the life of me, I couldn’t remember her name. Oh, I know age takes its toll on memories, but it generally effects short term, not long term as much. Because I’ve lived with this brain for more than 55 years, I have a fairly good grasp on what makes it tick and I realize how age speeds up the process of slowing it down. I guess we can never know too much about ourselves, but I certainly know what eats at me and one of those things is when I draw a complete blank. The right side of my brain is why I’ve spent a good part of my life in a creative, artistic field and the left controls how I analyze and dissect every thought and conjure up solutions to complex problems. I had to know her name and my left hemisphere was plugging away. Silently, I ran through the alphabet, trying to settle on one letter that would stand out. I think we all do that first. After a half hour or so of antagonizing myself, a letter popped out. N. Yes, “N” was more than likely prominent in there somewhere. OK, and I know when it’s time to quit. Yup, Dave, it’ll come to you now, just put it on the back burner. Give it a rest. It will be there when you least expect it. About an hour later, her first name was a clear as the first time I ever heard it… Anna. With two “N’s.” Keep it on the back burner, Dave, go on about your business. I’m sure that’s not the ” N” you’re thinking about. I’m sure there’s more to it. Forget about it for now.

When I was much younger, my best friend, his wife and I - and maybe, whoever was my best seller at the time - would get together and play a simple mind game. We’d think of 10 words and give each one a corresponding word, but the object was to make the other word as difficult to associate with the first word as possible. The harder the two words were together, the more difficult it would be to remember. For example,

pencil - tire

Your opponent would mention the two words together. Then, each word would be said by itself and the challenge was to remember the second word. For pencil - tire, I pictured a pencil resting on top of a tire and that’s what I remembered, so when my opponent said “pencil” I had the right response. I did the same thing with the remaining 9 examples. We played this for hours or until we started to get bored, but the loser always won the Steamy Turd Award and no one wanted that. I always got to draw the turd, even if I lost. There’s the right side of my brain for you. I was the best artist in the bunch. Some of you may think of this as a purely stupid game, but I’m sure it’s played a big role in why my memory is still almost as good as it was 25 years ago, while I was in my prime. I think doing crossword puzzles and word jumbles every day helps considerably, too, in keeping my mind sharp. If only my body would respond the same way.

The most puzzling part of this whole thing is where does old information come from in your brain? I mean, it’s not like a computer that stores it somewhere and knows where to retrieve it in a nanosecond. Sure, it’s in there somewhere and there’s no way a conscious mind could ever bring back everything that’s registered over so many years. It’s got to be some sort of random access memory thing, because once we put it out ofour minds and the pressure of thinking about it goes away, that’s when our brains secretly go to work. Out of the blue, the answer always comes. Always. What wondrous mechanisms are at work without our knowledge, digging so deeply into the caverns of our psyches? How do our brains do that and so much more? Well, I’m not going to fret over it too long. Believe me, it will drive me nuts. Mucho loco.

Oh yeah, Anna. Anna Notarangelo. There’s that “N” I scraped up earlier. It came to me later in the day and I guarantee I was thinking about something else. What made me think of her to begin with?