memory Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Actor Marilu Henner turns 70

She remembers almost everything!

I’m most familiar with the actor Marilu Henner from the sitcom Taxi, which aired on ABC for four seasons and NBC for one, from 1978 to 1983. She played Elaine Nardo, the only female cabbie in the regular cast.

I also watched her on Evening Shade, a show about retired football player Wood Newton (Burt Reynolds) moving back to rural Evening Shade, AR with his attorney-wife (Henner) and their four children. It ran on CBS from 1990 to 1994 She appeared in the movie L.A. Story (1991).

But I wouldn’t have written about her here but for one specific trait. Marilu Henner has hyperthymesia or total recall memory. She claimed, and it was verified by researchers, that she can remember specific details of virtually every day of her life since she was a child.

I remember her appearance on 60 Minutes on December 19, 2010. In fact, as Henner discusses in 2015 for EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG, CBS could have had a story about the subject of extraordinary memory with another subject around 2006. But correspondent Lesley Stahl knew her friend Henner had a very good memory and thought it was no big deal.

Later, Stahl discovered what an extraordinary gift her friend had. Here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of Endless Memory, which also features other people with hyperthymesia and the researchers investigating the phenomenon. 60 Minutes Australia ran a similar story, featuring Henner, in 2018.

The performer was a consultant for a TV show called Unforgettable. “Carrie Wells (Poppy Montgomery), a former police detective, has a rare ability to remember virtually everything she experiences including detailed visual recall. She returns to police work and uses her ability to solve crimes.”

What do I remember?

I was on an FFAPL Zoom talk with author Isaiah Rashad on February 15. He asked us what do we remember about 1997, and most of us struggled. I was in a wedding in 1996. In 1998, I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and appeared on JEOPARDY!

But 1997? Nothing came to mind until hours later. I was in a Bible study in 1996-97, 34 weeks and I read the whole thing. One of the latter exercises was to attend a worship service, not in my tradition.

As I mentioned, in passing here, I went to a Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) church on Madison Avenue in Albany for a three-hour service. Afterward, I went to the coffee hour. And one of the parishioners, discovering that I was a Protestant, said, very casually and seemingly without malice, “You do know you’re going to hell, don’t you?” THAT happened in 1997.

But Marilu Henner could likely tell you what shoes she wore on any given day in 1997. She has a very meticulous closet, with all of the hangers the same. Her pairs of shoes always have one toe and one heel out.

Interestingly, of the five people in the original 60 Minutes segment, only Henner was in a relationship, her third marriage. This one seems to be the charm, especially after she helped discover Michael Brown’s bladder cancer.

Cornhole, tea lights – words I didn’t know

You Can Count On Me

My family was in a local bar/restaurant waiting for takeout. There were at least three televisions tuned to differing sports events. One was showing a competition from the American Cornhole League. No, I did not know that was a thing.

The competitors play by the rules of the American Cornhole Association, which sells “official cornhole bags.” There’s also the American Cornhole Association – ACO.

How do you score? “Bag In-The-Count (Woody): Any bag which comes to rest anywhere on top of the board. Each is worth one (1) point. Bag In-The-Hole (Cornhole): Any bag which is thrown through the hole or knocked through the hole by another bag. Each is worth three (3) points.”

I got home and asked my wife, “What was the name of that game in which they were tossing bean bags into a hole?” I had to look it up. When I would play it in a playground or someone’s yard, only the bag going into the hole counted.

Silent Night

At church on Christmas Eve, we usually have individual candles, which the congregation blows out after the lights come on and we sing Joy To The World. It was decided that the tradition wasn’t COVID safe. I thought we weren’t going to sing Silent Night at all. Instead, a bunch of tiny electric candles either were purchased or retrieved from somewhere.

In describing them to my wife and daughter, I described them as little electric votive candles. In fact, they have a very specific name: tea lights. I had never heard of that designation in my life.

What’s the name of that movie?

Sometimes, I have a difficult time remembering the name of movies when I find the titles unmemorable. The first movie I ever saw with Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney was You Can Count On Me (2000). Yet I have the hardest time remembering what it’s called and end up searching IMBD for one of the actors.

Worse is a 2014 movie about a character played by Jon Favreau who buys a food truck. The film shows the best-looking grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever seen filmed. Yet I can’t remember the name of the movie. Oh, yeah, Chef, which is what the Favreau character was BEFORE he bought the food truck.

Similar to…

When I occasionally can’t up with a common word, I’m comforted that first, I think of a related term then work back to the one I want. For instance, if you were going to make dinner, you might need that list of food items. What’s that called? I might think Menu, which IS a list of foods. No that’s not right. Recipe. Of course.

Mom died on Groundhog’s Day 2011

It was a Wednesday

My mom died on Groundhog’s Day. It was 11 years ago, in 2011. Now, it’s 2022. A lot of repeating numbers. It was a Wednesday. Today is Wednesday.

On one hand, of course, her passing is a singular event. Looking back at my blog posts from February 2011, specifically 2, 3, 6, 9, 16, and 27, and subsequently, I had the need to write more about that time than possibly any other. The death of my dad in 2000, before the start of this blog, has been discussed, but retrospectively.

The day before, I had arrived in Charlotte, NC. Leslie was already there and Marcia lived there. They said that mom was doing better than she had been since she entered the hospital the previous Friday. I had heard that people often seem to rally a bit before they die, but I saw no reason to mention that to my sisters.

I slept in a chair, or maybe two, in my mother’s room. About an hour after she had awakened, she sounded as though she were suffocating. So I buzzed the nurse and this army of folks descended on the room. Someone noted to me in a scolding tone that she had a DNR, Do Not Resuscitate. Yes, I knew that.

I wasn’t trying to get her rescued, just to make she wasn’t uncomfortable. To myself, but not to the medical personnel, I muttered, “Sorry, I am not savvy on the stages just before death. This is my first one.”

Passing

And, in fact, when she did pass away, I was unaware until someone told me. My sisters were en route, so there was no point in calling them. When they arrived about ten minutes later, one noted that she looked peaceful and comfortable. I got to break the news. I signed some paperwork, as I did for dad. Then there seemed to be this rush for us to identify a funeral home to send her body to. This made me cranky too.

I can recall my emotions to the response to my February 2 post. I had written about four days earlier that I was going to Take The Train To Charlotte after my mother’s stroke. So the early comments were of the “I hope your mom gets better” variety. But after I told Denise Nesbitt via email that Mom had passed, she clearly circulated the news. If I want to cry Right Now, I can just read the later comments.

Now, I feel like an Orphaned Adult but that happened and is now just IS. Life post-parents have allowed my siblings and me to have more honest conversations about the ‘rents.

So when Mom died on Groundhog’s Day, it was a long time ago. And it was last week. One of those funeral parlor quotes, which I suppose I’d normally find overly sentimentalized, I somehow like right now. “There is a link death cannot sever. Love and remembrance last forever.”

Going to my 50th high school reunion

1971

As I mentioned, I attended the 50th Binghamton Central High School reunion on Saturday, September 25. It was held on a pavilion in Ross Park, a place I went to a lot in my childhood. I felt that I really should attend. For the 45th, I dithered publicly online about maybe/probably going and ended up not making the trip.

Actually, there was a gathering at a bar called My Uncle’s Place the night before this year’s event. It’s on something called East Service Road, which turns out to be a service road parallel to I-88/Route 7. I called a couple of taxi companies. The first dispatcher actually asked me, “Who is your uncle?” “No, it’s the name of the place…” Anyway, I met about 20 people, give or take, there, and I had a pleasant time. I also got a ride back to my hotel with Yvonne and Sharon.

I had to change hotels the day of the reunion and had to check out of one venue before checking in the other. So I ended up hanging out at… OK, you might be able to guess… at the library. The downtown facility of my growing up was on Exchange Street where I worked as a page for a few months during high school, reshelving older magazines and putting on microfilm for patrons. That Carnegie library in the midst of being repurposed. The current library on Court Street is where there was an old Giant grocery store. It’s actually quite nice.

At the pavilion

My friend Bill, who I’ve only known since kindergarten picked me up at the library. He was with his wife Brenda, who is delightful. I went to their wedding in 1983(?)

I know my family and folks from my church spent a lot of time at the park when I was growing up. I’m sure Bill’s tribe did the same. Yet we were not as certain of precisely how to get there, though we made it there easily.

There were some people I was really happy to see. Keith, who’s been known to read this blog. Lois, who I’ve known since kindergarten. Lonna who I knew from the drama club. I spent some time talking with Mike, one of the organizers and who lived two blocks from my house growing up, who got injured by trying to do the right thing. I liked Mike’s wife Diane, though she had gone to a different high school.

Barbara is the cousin of one of my oldest friends. I didn’t recognize one guy because his nametag said Alex; Rusty, I DID remember. Two teachers were there, Jack Sinchaski, who I had for physics, and Carl Young, who was a history teacher who eventually became the County Executive for Broome County.

What we needed were those nametags 1) printed, with a larger font than the handwritten pieces, optimally with 2) their high school pictures. It’s because I’ve been one of those people who is not great with names and faces.

In fact, I didn’t recognize one guy twice in a four-decade span. When I went to my 10th reunion, one guy I was friendly with in high school I simply didn’t recognize because he had a severely receding hairline. He was really ticked off with me too. Didn’t recognize him this time either.

More information, please

For me, It’s like seeing a picture of James Taylor from the Sweet Baby James era of 1970, then one from That’s Why I’m Here in 1985. If his name wasn’t printed there, I’m not 100% sure I would have recognized him.

This explains, I suppose, why I tended to recognize the women at the reunion, and similar situations, easier than the men. There was a segment on some show years ago, probably 60 Minutes, where the correspondent could show pictures of noteworthy people when they were children and the subject of the piece could identify the celebrity; one was the correspondent, Mike Wallace. That is SO much not me.

high school reunion.JanK.Jan1971 — **The January 1971 BCHS graduates. The June 1971 class was also present. Used with permission of the photographer (C)2021 JK**

Sister Marcia, the convener

old movies

My sister Marcia was asking that the family, i.e., my sister Leslie, she, and I – meet online on a regular basis for years. And years.

She wanted to use Skype or some such. As I vaguely recall, I found that platform unnecessarily wonky, and so… I didn’t say No, and I actually downloaded the software. MAYBE we used it once or twice, but I didn’t like it.

But as the saying goes, it takes a pandemic. The three of us have met almost every week for a year on ZOOM. Occasionally, we’ll get guest participants such as my wife or Marcia’s daughter. We pretty much fill two 40-minute slots. (Longer than that and I develop brain fog.)

Currently, she’s working on pricing a headstone for our maternal grandmother Gertrude (Yates) Williams, who died in 1982, and her sister Adenia Yates, who passed in 1966. Why my parents never took care of this is one of those unsolved mysteries.

One of these days, maybe in the summer, we’ll spend some time working on genealogy. Ancestry.com has provided us with approximately one jillion hints of possible connections. Anyone who’s ever spent any appreciable time finding their roots knows that it is a rabbit hole that would have Alice wondering.

Cinema

I may have seen more recent movies. But she has viewed FAR more movies from the last century, especially the 1930s through the 1960s, almost all of them released before she was born. I keep threatening to veg out on TCM or some other channel, but I haven’t done so yet.

So she knows who Barbara Stanwick is. I mean, I do too, but only because she was on the TV series The Big Valley (1965-1969), while she’ll know the performer from classics such as Double Indemnity (1944), but also from the more obscure fare.

For the most part, she knows her performers from the Studio Age of cinema. Of course, she has a pretty uncanny ability to recall things from our childhood, events I’ve long forgotten.

Happy birthday, baby sister.