What Do You Remember and Why?
Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it? My Dad has been sick; his short-term memory is now approximately 30 minutes, give or take. It’s exhausting to be the “reminder”, but worth the effort to quell the terror at the forgetting.
Did you watch any college football on Saturday? Ohio State vs. Michigan perhaps? The unprecedented ending of Alabama vs. Auburn? Memorable doesn’t quite seem to be adequate, but that’s surely what they were. Imagine for a moment you were there, on the field of play. Imagine the memories you’ll have.
Given my Saturday’s activity (glued to TV watching football) it’s not too surprising that I dreamed of football last night. It was a recurring dream, one that comes to me often, and one from which I always seem to awaken to start my day. My dream is like a classic NFL Films pastiche of all of my football FAILURES. That’s right, all of my lowlights in one continuously running loop, endlessly spooling until I finally, mercifully, wake up.
I never remember the good plays. From any sport at any time. Is it like this for you guys? Seriously, there is literally only one play from college I recall where it all turned out OK. Ah, but the misses? Those plays where I got burned, fumbled, missed the free throw, failed to get it up and down for the win? Those are burned into my brain as if by some cosmic branding iron. I wonder why that is…
Memory is a funny thing, isn’t it?
In my Inbox the other day I received a request to participate in a concussion study of Div. III football players. Some of my teammates received the request while others seemingly have not. This set us to the task of deciphering who did get the request and why. Opinions differ, swinging between GPA (those above a certain grade were solicited) and athletic prowess (those below a certain grade were solicited). All of which made for a spirited back and forth between men of a certain age who share…wait for it…memories.
Men over the age of 30 are well-known to have difficulty making new friends, at least friends as significant as those they made in their youth. I get this, especially when I realize that I really DO have good memories from my days as whatever version of athlete I might have been. They just don’t happen to be from the field of play, but rather from the locker room and the bus. Pre- and post-game meetings and gatherings. Watching the “big boys” play on Saturdays with teammates after our all too short season had ended. Gathering to parse the mysteries of the concussion study, so much like being back on a stool contemplating a new day’s fresh undergear, musing on the next generation telling their own stories of bonding and wondering if they will have what we had. What we have.
Indeed, I remember very little of yesterday’s CrossFit WOD. Little other than what the aches in my body tell me I must have done. Like in my days as a team sport athlete I do not remember a particular rep or the weight I used or my score. No, just like always and ever before what I remember from yesterday is what I remember from last week and last year and all the way back to 2006: I remember who I was with. I remember that being with them felt like winning.
I hope that they, as I do with teammates of yore, will remember it the same.
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