Forgetting - and Remembering - Names

On the street the other morning, I ran into a guy I knew from working on a magazine years ago. I bump into him every 2 or 3 years; he’s a nice guy, a decent guy. I recognized him immediately, remembered irrelevant details about his kids and his wife who has a terrific singing voice. I recalled his latest job at the local university. BUT, I could not remember his name.

This also happened the last time I saw him, just as we were coming out of the pandemic. He and his wife were seated nearby in a restaurant. I tried to introduce him to my friends without using names - hug, hug, exchange a few sentences, then I waved toward my friends and said, “Oh, meet my friends Mark and Ava”, hoping he would say his name when he shook hands, but he didn’t. It was an awkward dance. Hours later, his name just popped back into my head.

It didn't work this time. By the next day, I still couldn't remember his name. It was driving me crazy. I had almost-names buzzing in my head. I thought he had a shortish last name; a first name that has the sound of Y but isn’t a nickname; maybe 5-6 letters in first name and 7 in his last. He had a common type name, not fancy. Urg!

Yesterday

7:30 AM in the shower, there it is! Henry Perkins. AND all my free associating (Maddy would be proud) was correct. His first name has 5 letters, his last has 7, Y sound, yes, common type of name, yes.

So of course, I had to start reading about names and especially about recall. I learned what I had done intuitively:

1. Associated him to other contexts: my job at the magazine, meeting him in the restaurant, imagining other people referring to him.

2. I tried to relax my mind (that is equivalent to asking a hive of bees to join hands and sing Michael Row the Boat Ashore).

3. I chipped away at the problem by recalling little parts of his name.

It's amazing; Freud would be proud. Feel free to share your memory techniques - if you recall them.

The Book Stall in Winnetka, IL, (that city is the site of the mysterious death in the novel), is carrying Not The Trip We Planned. Thank you. If you have read the book, please write a review on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com. Don't forget to mention how witty I am in the book, and use your thesaurus for superlatives. One of the authors, Carol Kerr, is having a book launch conversation in Portland today. The title is 'An afternoon Conversation about how Not The Trip We Planned fulfilled a promise and became a book'. Break a leg or spine or whatever wishes good luck to writers.