Something you Remember... but Why ?

[Dibbons]

I remember the hammering going on while the construction workers were completing the skeleton structure of the Matterhorn Bobsled ride in Disneyland circa 1958 (I was three years old). The ride opened the following year (summer of 1959). Who could forget their first trip to Disneyland?

 

[ESOXER]

I was cutting down a tree, my brother was stacking wood in the truck bed, tree twisted and dropped across the bed. I thought I killed him, he poped up through the branches and yelled "That was awesome!" I remember his face, felt relieved, then I turn and see my dad two inches away. Then I remember waking up in the snow.
Good times.

 

[Kern Dog]

Bought a 71 Cuda, factory ordered, back in the dinosaur days, and kept it for 45 years.
Why i can remember the VIN number back in my brain, and why i made an effort to remember it, i don't know.
Now i use it as a security code, that i feel nobody is ever going to figure out, for entry onto one of my web sites.

It wouldn't be that hard to break the code of a 383 Cuda. You should change that before someone hacks it and starts posting humorous things using your screen name.

 

[hemi71x]

It wouldn't be that hard to break the code of a 383 Cuda. You should change that before someone hacks it and starts posting humorous things using your screen name.

View attachment 1342021

Do you really think someone is going to be able to hack the last six digits of a VIN number that are in the hundreds of thousands range?

 

[moparedtn]

I'm no different than most of you apparently, judging from these posts.
I can remember my address, phone number, all that from the childhood home I grew up in
(50 years since last set foot in it) - all the way down to individual cracks in the sidewalks
between it and the school we walked to each day.
I remember addresses and phone numbers of each place I've ever lived, in fact.
I don't think there's much special in that...

Vehicles? I remember every single one the family had and of course all I've owned - but
not so much serial numbers and such, but more like individual characteristics of each...
You let me snoop around an old car for a few minutes and I don't care what the numbers were,
I can tell you if it was one of mine pretty quick just from the individual quirks of each.
Again, I don't know if there's much special about that ability either.

I think it boils down to simpler lives in earlier years, so there's not as much competition for
available memory cells in the brain - along with a younger, more nimble brain to begin with.
As life gets on, more stuff is jammed in the noggin and it starts to get crowded in there...
Add a dose of slowing from aging, more complications in life, more competition for remaining
brain cells as our world becomes ever faster and more electronics-"aided" just to function in...
and next thing you know, the nostalgia of simpler times is not only an emotional one, but a REAL
one, based in reality.

I think it's entirely possible we're in a world now that wears out mental capacities faster than ever.
Wouldn't surprise me if senility, Parkinson's, all those old age mental exhaustion maladies aren't more
prevalent than ever now vs. times past, honestly.

 

[64BEL]

What was the original question again?

I often wonder if my short term memory is just shot. My long term memory example is this. I can remember in vivid detail the local ice cream truck that drove through our neighborhood in the '60s in Latham, NY. It was a blue '64 Dodge D100 stepside with an ice cream freezer in the bed. I can still see it and smell the exhaust standing behind it. And I can remember the guy's name who owned and drove it. Joe Schlish. Yet I can't remember much about a lot of stuff, including trips we've taken over the past 30 years. Sometimes my daughter will ask me a detail about something we did when she was growing up. I often tell her I don't remember but your Mom will. My wife remembers much better than I do. And once she helps me recall, I am able to start retreiving some of it as I think more about it. Sometimes a guy on the FD will talk about some big call we had and I'll ask was I on that one? Sometimes the answer is yes, you drove the engine! It's a strange phenomenon. I've read that we only have the capacity to remember a certain number of names. So when you get a new one, another one has to get pushed out of your memory to make room. That seems to make sense with a lot of my memory. Maybe that's why I often can't remember somone's name I just met. Maybe they need to leave more of a mark to make them important enough to remember and push something else out of the memory.

 

[Richard Cranium]

It’s been purported that we only use about 10% of our brains.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Kern Dog]

Do you really think someone is going to be able to hack the last six digits of a VIN number that are in the hundreds of thousands range?

Five digits to run through. The sequence starts with a 1 so a determined person could hack an account if they were so inclined.

 

[Ron H]

Speak for yourself.

Yeah okay, I'll admit there have been occasions, a number of them, when I’ve used 0% of my brain

 

[Hey-O]

YES !! Another strange thing, I can also recall my home number when I was a kid, and my friends phone numbers. Why do we remember such things ?

Some of it for me came out of fear. I remember being in Canada and my dad couldn't speak English and got lost on a bus ride home. He couldn't remember our address, we just moved there. My father had notes in his wallet from that day forward. Me, I was less than 3 when I remembered that address and it made me feel safe to know whatever might happen I could always find home. The address in Canada was 273 Ottawa street Regina Saskatchewan. When we got to America, the first one was 12292 Clayton road.

My wife has Stargardt's, a form of eye disease that causes vision loss in children and young adults. She has made up for some of it by have the memory of an elephant. I can ask her for the phone number of any and all my doctors, to the number of the local license bureau and she has short of total recall. The mind is a strange thing that we have very little understanding of.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Remember Pi?

Hair Pi?

 

[Hey-O]

I can't count cards like Rain Man though.

I have a friend that can and he's watched and been thrown out of every casino in St. Louis. When he shows up, they send someone to follow him, my right hand to God, never seen anything like it.

 

[slepr1]

I can still remember the first time I got laid. Vividly. Got fired for it too. I guess my boss didn't like me boning his babysitter.

 

[1967coronet]

My grandmother passed years ago at 99.
She was sharp and with it until aprox 97 or so.
One day she was telling me about traveling by horse and wagon as a young gal.. Then in her 90s watched the nasa space shuttles on TV.
She had a memory that was rock solid at that point.

 

[Hey-O]

Hair Pi?

 

[PlymCrazy]

Ha. I left NY decades ago. When I lived there I had a problem with getting pulled over. Must have had my driver license number out so often I still remember the number. R0943143215XXXXXX-58.

We must have more and more people with memory issues up here LOL. DL#'s are down to (9) digits in NY these days.

 

[themechanic]

Speak for yourself.

 

[WileERobby]

My grandmother passed years ago at 99.
One day she was telling me about traveling by horse and wagon as a young gal.. Then in her 90s watched the nasa space shuttles on TV.

That has got to be an interesting life, to say the least. For a certain segment of humanity to live from travel by horse&wagon, through a depression, through 2 world wars, to witnessing man travel to the moon.

 

[maxwedgechar]

I am 71 years old. I remember when we picked up my brother at the hospital...I was 2 1/2. As for a second to second memory, I worked at my uncle's pizza shop in 1969. We got out of work at about 1:30 in the morning. I was driving my '59 Sport Suburban Golden Commando. 361, 305 HP, Cast Iron TF, 3.31 gears and 4000 pounds! I raced what turned out to be a '64 Gran Prix. First and second gears we were dead even. Full throttle shift into drive at about 80 I pulled half a fender on him! We went through a flashing yellow intersection at about 110! With somebody waiting at the blinking red to see who won! I am guessing that there might be a whole 120 seconds start to finish and I might be able to remember where I was for each one.
In 1954 my parents bought a big old wooden boat, I remember the day they bought it I was not quite 3. I don't remember anything about the boat until 1956 when we took our first trip. First day of Kindergarten, First Grade, I remember most of my teachers, my best friend of 57 years doesn't remember any of our teachers because he hated them all! I was introduced to my wife by the same friend right before graduation and I remember all the firsts with her. My friend and his wife will be discussing something and they'll say ask Charlie he'll know.

 

[Kern Dog]

I have a friend that can and he's watched and been thrown out of every casino in St. Louis. When he shows up, they send someone to follow him, my right hand to God, never seen anything like it.

That is bullshit. Casinos drain the pockets of 95% of their customers and when someone has an edge, they are banned??