Things Remembered

My bicycle lock had the combination 11-37-15, with a second lock of 26-12-30. An elementary school friend lived at 1911 North 11th Street. At Girl Scout camp on the Mullet River I was forced to go to the nurse's tent daily to soak my feet in a pail of water made deep purple by a small pill called Potassium Permanganate. It was to prevent the spread of 'athletes foot' rampant that summer.

At 16 when I asked a classmate (never a friend) Bobby B., what he did on his newly acquired job, he responded, "I put the blue string down the center of sanitary napkins." It was not true and was only said to embarrass me in front of his fellow boy friends who guffawed nearby. They thought it was hilarious. I thought it was stupid. His attempt at embarrassment falling to the cracks in the sidewalk and disappearing like gutter water

At a small group gathering in my 20's, Dee N. served a potluck dish of lime jello with pineapple and a touch of horseradish. Radical. And I just had to have the recipe. I remember details of conversations, quotes whose authors have long been forgotten, looks on children's and/or animals faces in KODAK flashes of time.

All these and MORE are things I remember. And yet, I can't remember the author of the book I read and loved a week ago. Can't remember the exact date of my divorce. Can't remember how I celebrated milestone birthdays between the ages of 18 and 40. Can't remember whether I took my daily medications unless I use the marked dispenser designed for that purpose.

Isn't it interesting what things we remember and those which we don't?

What's up with that?