“But I want to know for sure!
C’mon and — hold me tight.
You mooove me.”
More than a few years ago the friends I knew from high school and then at the University of Minnesota were talking about what songs and bands were our particular favorites and why.
Just a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds, chewing the fat and eager to discuss the things that had meaning in our lives.
One of us, Dave, didn’t particularly agree with any of our favorites, but later on that night, as he and I were talking, the Troggs came on the radio and he suddenly straightened up (he’s a big, rangy guy) looked at ther heavens and hollered, “Wild Thing is my favorite song!”
He later claimed to have been kidding about this.
But the folks who study brains know the process whereby certain memories get imprinted in our noggins, and that one surprised and amused me enough that it stayed with me. The Troggs came on the radio a bit ago, and once again, I thought of Dave.
He has no idea, I’m sure, of this association. I believe about a decade ago he said again that he doesn’t particularly like the song.
But I really have no way to get in and write over the association I will now always have — Wild Thing comes on the radio — and I always think of Dave. Proclaiming his devotion.
Which makes me wonder, how many people have I known, in all my wanderings, in my different jobs and such, who have similar associations about me?
Associations which, if I knew about them, I would say, “no, no, no, that’s not me at all.”
And how many such associations do you have?
A bad haircut, that one dance you had with someone, a bright, silly shirt, the time your friend “appropriated” all your clothes while several of you went skinny-dipping?
And how many people have memories of you whereby you might say — well, umm, that’s not really anything with which I’ve ever hoped to be associated or remembered … ?
OmbudsBen 
Let me guess… they play Wild Thing at the Wild’s matches? 😛
LOL, Jeff, good one!
I am too frightened to contemplate your question. Some things are best left unimagined.
I had a reaction similar to Stevo’s. Not only are some things best left unimagined, they’re also best left unremembered.
But then again, there are things it’s nice to go back and look at once in a while. 🙂
Hmmm … definitely not going there …
For all those who are not ashamed to love Wild Thing, make sure you see Something Wild (the Melanie Griffiths Jeff Daniels Ray Liotta film). Beats the everliving hell out of Louie Louie as far as I’m concerned.
And as Stevo said, to worry about lasting and false impressions is not something you want to do. You’ve mentioned ones based on actual events but what about all the ones in passing on the street. When someone looks at any one of us and forever labels us a goof.
Well, well, umm, er —
but what about all the people who remember you fondly?!?
C’mon, Robin and az., I’ll bet there are lots of people who knew you “back in the day” and still remember what a sharp person you were the time you:
[fill in the __________ ]
And Stevo and aos, as much as you two travel I’ll bet there are lots of people out there thinking, ‘wow, there went a sharp operator … ”
postscript: once, while traveling around the country, I was in Syracuse, New York, and got completely distracted loading my backpack. I got everything organized, hefted the pack, and swung the door on my old Ford Fairlane shut.
“Excuse me,” a woman said. “You forgot your carkeys in the door,” she pointed at my keys hanging smartly from the passenger door lock.
ouch, ouch, wince, ouch.
(“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, standing about 5 inches tall off the sidewalk. I still remember her with gratitude.)
These associations are mind-boggling to me. Why we remember something like this particular one with Dave and Wild Thang — WHY!? And yet, I have the same crystallized memories, most just moments, associated with some song, or some food. A place. A car. I can’t think of hot dogs without remember the time Matthew Martinez threw up hot dog chunks in the doorway of our barracks in 4th or 5th grade. Ugh. I should have found a diffferent example.
It’s an odd thing, Ben, but I’ve been trying to come up with something to fit your example of:
C’mon, Robin and az., I’ll bet there are lots of people who knew you “back in the day” and still remember what a sharp person you were the time you:
[fill in the __________ ]
I’m not discounting the possibility that someone might have that sort of memory, but I can’t think of who that someone might be.
My childhood was a little rough. My teenhood was really rough. There are a lot of things I’m hoping nobody remembers. (I’ll never be a politician, that’s for sure!)
But the good thing is that I got all of that bad stuff out of the way at a young age. Life has been wonderful to me since I married and moved away from where I grew up.
Oh wait! I do have one. I spent an entire summer learning how to whistle, the kind of loud whistle you do when you stick your fingers in your mouth. Nary a noise came from between my lips and fingers in June, but by August I could whistle loud enough to call my brothers back home from 2-3 blocks over. (It comes in very handy out here in the country when I want to get my husband’s attention and he’s at the back end of the property.)
A new kid had moved in across the street the beginning of that summer and he’d make fun of me as I sat on the curb blowing hot air through my fingers.
But by August, he was asking me to teach him.
So, yeah, I guess there is someone who might be able to fill in that blank.
In fact, there might be more, but it’s hard to fill in those blanks sometimes. More out of choice than lack of memory. Perhaps I ought to be making that choice a little more often because it’s nice.
Thanks. 🙂
No, yb — the hot dogs are perfect. That’s how it works! Good to hear from you again.
Robin, I once had a job where I had to read aloud. There was some stress with comparing texts and proofing them for perfection, and I used to get cancre sores from the work.
One of my coworkers, “T” and I swapped stories, and T told me how he was related to a movie star who lived in Europe. T had a funny story about traveling on the cheap and visiting her over there; and her neighbor Charles Gray, who was in Rocky Horror Picture Show.
T asked Gray about it and Gray said he still got checks occasionally, “dreadful little movie” he called it, and T realized Gray didn’t realize what a hit it was becoming, and how people hollered “no neck!” at his image on the screen.
T was a bit of a deadhead, and left SF to go manage a band somewhere, but years later I ran into him at a streetfair in the Bay Area.
“Do you still get those cancre sores”? he asked. I hadn’t thought about that for years.
“I still tell people your story about Charles Gray,” I smiled, and he looked startled. It clearly wasn’t part of his self-image.
Neither one of us thought of ourselves in the terms the other most often remembered.
Memory is such a tricky thing. Let’s do the time warp again!
Oddly enough, I was thinking along these lines last night. We had a big work dinner, with distinguished (for which read ‘older than me and paid more’) colleagues from our US office.
One of them, Preppy Chap, had apparently asked to be introduced to me and when we met said “Ah, so YOU’RE [my name]. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I wanted to say: “What exactly have you heard? I admit nothing and I never touched it. I wasn’t even there. Unless its good, in which case, it was me, yes, definitely, I remember it well.”
What did you say?
I’m reading Nero Wolfe mysteries lately and in one, when someone approaches his able dogsbody assistant, Archie Goodwin, with that same line (“You’re Archie Goodwin”) he replies:
“Prove it.”
I wish my mind worked that quick.