As America gradually turns gray with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, a lot of things are being forgotten. Like for example, where I put my car keys. Or why there’s an urgent-sounding note on my desk, in my own handwriting, that says, “IMPORTANT APPOINTMENT TODAY.”
With so many Baby Boomers now entering the preliminary stages of memory loss, numerous researchers have been tasked with finding out why people forget things when they get old. (When the people get old, that is… not when the things get old.) One such investigator, Dr. Jerry Attrick of Colorado State University, has spent the past couple of months in Stinkwater Springs, Colorado, conducting scientific research for a possible book project, and the Daily Post was lucky enough to schedule a brief interview with the noted professor…
Daily Post: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, Dr. Attrick.
Dr. Attrick: No problem. I’ve always enjoyed my visits to Glenwood Springs over the years.
Daily Post: And your visits to Stinkwater Springs, as well, I assume.
Dr. Attrick: (Laughs) Oh, yes, I meant: my visits to Stinkwater Springs. I get caught up in my research, and I don’t always remember which town I’m in.
Daily Post: Understandable. For a man your age, I mean.
Dr. Attrick: Well, just because I’m a memory researcher doesn’t mean I don’t have my senior moments. (Laughs.)
Daily Post: So tell us a little bit about your research, and how you ended up here in Stinkwater.
Dr. Attrick: Well, I can start right off with the second part of your question. You have a wonderful selection of older retired folks here in Stinkwater, and most of them have very little to do — what with the lack of cultural amenities and all that — so it’s been very easy to find members of your older population willing to participate in my research.
And so far, they’ve pretty much validated the hypothesis behind my research, which is that senior citizens are just too smart for their own good. That is to say, the brains of older people are simply overloaded with information — the same way a computer hard drive gets full, and everything starts to gradually slow down. Slower and slower, until finally you just want to buy a new computer.
Daily Post: But of course, an older person can’t buy a new brain.
Dr. Attrick: Exactly. But people need to remember — if they can — that it’s not so much a matter of an older person’s brain getting weaker — it’s the amount of information they’ve got stored. Old people collect a lot of useless facts and opinions in their brains, the same way they collect useless junk in their garages and attics — and they don’t know how to let go of what is essentially “mental trash”.
So you get a situation where you walk into the next room, to get something — and when you get there, you find yourself trying to remember what you went to get. You walk back into the room you came from, in an attempt to remember what you were doing before you thought you needed something from the other room. That kind of “memory strategy” doesn’t always work, but my research suggests that it’s not exactly a memory problem, so much as, it’s nature’s way of giving older people the exercise they need.
Daily Post: And I understand you plan on writing a book about your findings? Which will be your second book about memory loss? I’ve read your first book and really enjoyed it..
Dr. Attrick: Yes, that’s my plan. My first book, Where the Hell Did I Put My Glasses — Oh, They’re on My Head, was enormously popular, and the next book will expand on that original research.
Daily Post: Do you have a working title for the next book?
Dr. Attrick: Yes, I think I’m going to title it, If You Forgot What I Wrote in My First Book, You Really Need This One.
Daily Post: I imagine that will be a big seller, if you can get it written before people forget that they read your first book.
Dr. Attrick: Very perceptive observation, Mr. Cannon. In fact, that’s the basis of my research here in Glenwood Springs.
Daily Post: Stinkwater Springs.
Dr. Attrick: Yes, Stinkwater Springs…
Daily Post: So… the basis of your research?
Dr. Attrick: I’m studying people who’ve read my book but can’t remember the title or the author’s name. Or who’ve forgotten that they’ve read it. The question that we urgently need to answer, as the Baby Boomers move into old age, is whether memory is simply a ‘lost cause,’ or if there’s something we can actually do to eliminate the overload of information stored in our brains. As you may know, scientists often use themselves as their own guinea pigs, and I’ve actually developed some pretty extreme mental exercises that I believe enable me to download unimportant information out of my brain — erase the useless stuff, so to speak; get rid of the junk — and leave only the really important information intact.
Will these same exercises work for other senior citizens? That’s what I want to find out, and it’s the core hypothesis of my current research.
Daily Post: Sounds like very valuable research. And what’s the title of your new book, again? I thought it was very clever.
Dr. Attrick: What new book?
Daily Post: Your second book. The book we were just talking about, a moment ago.
Dr. Attrick: Oh, yes, my new book. The working title is… something about… it has some kind of humorous reference to my first book.
It’ll come to me later. Probably just as I’m falling off to sleep.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.