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But some things, bad ones like a long illness, except for that it existed, are locked away or erased.
I had polio when I was six and spent quite few weeks in a hospital and rehab. It was a pretty traumatic experience but a few years ago I went back and remembered quite a bit of it. One trigger is the smell of wet wool. They put wet wool packs, developed by Sister Kinney, on us.
Last edited by Windwalker2; 01-07-2017 at 06:46 PM..
Reason: typo
Now this has got me sensitive to old memories. I was dozing to sleep in my bed last night, when I heard a soft noise and in my fog I thought it was my dad sort of snuffling as he slept.(My dad died many years ago.) I had not remembered hearing that sound at all! So, I am going to pay attention to more things in the near future. I think this thread is interesting, at least to me.
Over the past week, I asked my siblings if they remembered certain things. They are all pretty busy and just brushed me off.
Growing up, I just wanted to be like them, have tons of friends, confidence and just know instinctively what to do. (I have and had a vision disability; actually blind in one eye; vision in the other fair).
I was the gawky one, I guess. My parents even sent me to modeling school so I could become more normal, I guess but then my dad lost everything and I had to pay for the course myself and finish it out.
But, it was the music that brought all these memories back. Songs I had not thought about in years just brought it back, kind of a flood into the brain. Most of the time, I just remembered being alone, kind of left out, reading, studying because I was going to achieve something.
I just have to stay positive and keep putting one foot ahead of the other.
Smells trigger my memories. My father was from PA. and as a child would visit there often. So, the smell of burning wood or coal, always brings me back there. Or if I'm at an antique store, I may see a plate with a certain pattern and suddenly remember that one of my grandmothers had it.
My sister had an interesting memory flash last year. She is 56 now and the family genealogist. She's tracked down burial places and photographed them for Find-A-Grave.
She'd found where a paternal great-grandmother was buried behind a church about ten miles from where we grew up. She went to photograph the grave. She said she walked behind the church, down a hill, and then found the plot easily--a number of family members with our last name ate buried there.
After she took the picture, she glanced up the hill at the back of the church and all of a sudden, she remembered being there before. She said it flooded back to her that she had stood at that spot and looked up that hill at that church. She was four or five years old, and she was there with my father and my grandmother. The grave was that of my grandfather's mother, and my grandmother must have been showing my father where she was buried and my sister was along with them.
Music brings back a flood of memories. Where I was when I heard it, how life was in ''those days'', the lyrics and drum beats and bass licks known to me as intimately as my own heart beat.
I am instantly there and yet instantly feeling over-whelming sentimentality bordering on bereavement for how it ''was'' and how it ''will never be again''.
The recent tribute to Tony Bennet was such an emotionally gratifying, yet sad experience for me that I was in a ''funk'' for days.
Guess I'm getting old...
Anyone - can't remember what you did last week but all of sudden you can remember 40/50 years ago?
What if it makes you think too much?
Not sudden but I remember things from about age three on up. They're always with me and I'm 70. Encyclopedic recall is a two-edged sword at best. Some things are best forgotten.
Just don't ask me what I had for dinner last night or what I was supposed to pick up at the store today.
Music brings back a flood of memories. Where I was when I heard it, how life was in ''those days'', the lyrics and drum beats and bass licks known to me as intimately as my own heart beat.
I am instantly there and yet instantly feeling over-whelming sentimentality bordering on bereavement for how it ''was'' and how it ''will never be again''.
The recent tribute to Tony Bennet was such an emotionally gratifying, yet sad experience for me that I was in a ''funk'' for days.
Guess I'm getting old...
Exactly. You said that so well. It was the Chicago special on CNN that did it for me. First of all, as a little kid, we lived on the North Shore, my dad had his office in the Loop and he used to take my brother and me with him all the time. He would give us 5 bucks and tell us to go see a movie. We were like 7 and 3 - you could never do that today.
Then, we had moved to Florida but still had Chicago connections. I connected with the music - seeing Chicago and their story bought me back to The Buckinghams and their first hit was my first favorite song. I still get chills.
It was on Sunday night, January 1st that it was on CNN. I'm looking at the web and I find out Dennis Tufano (formerly lead singer of The Buckinghams) was in my area the night before (NYE) doing a spectacular show! Big miss! Would have been so cool.
Note to self: Get out more.
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