A woman stopped me in the post office the other day to tell me how much she liked my last column. I politely said thank you, though I had no idea what she was talking about. I could not for the life of me remember what I had written only a few days before.
Truth be told, the minute I press the send button on my computer, the essay I had just written is gone out of my mind. There is only so much room in my memory bank to retain all the trivial nonsense I foist upon you every week.
I have always thought I have a pretty good memory, particularly with faces; I never forget one. Unlike one friend of mine who can recall the name of every person he ever met, names for me disappear as quickly as my weekly musings. I still remember my children’s names and their birthdays, but for the life of me I cannot tell you what years they were born without doing the math (another skill that is rapidly vanishing from my talent pool).
I remember our anniversary and my wife’s birthday, including the year she was born, which she rarely admits to. I seem to remember things that happened years ago better than what occurred recently. Is that a sign of diminished cognitive ability?
There has been a lot of talk about memory loss and cognitive ability in the news these days, especially in the political arena. So, I decided to check out one of these tests that have showed up online lately.
I chose the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment). Appropriately enough, the first part was about memory. The first question asked me to read five names, then repeat them. They were face, velvet, church, daisy and red. Well, I figured that would be easy since I still remember how to read. I aced it. Then I had to wait until the end of the test and say them again, in order, from memory.
The second part, the “Alternating Trail Making,” was all about drawing. Now this is my thing, I shouldn’t have a problem here. The test showed letters and numbers and asked me to draw a line “going from a number to a letter in ascending order.” One to A and 2 to B and so on. Easy, peezy! Things are looking up.
Next, I had to draw a clock (digital clocks don’t count) with the numbers set to 10 minutes past 11. No problem. On to the “Abstraction Thinking” section, it asked, “How are an orange and a banana alike?” clarifying that there are “…no second guesses allowed.” Then the test asked how a ruler and a watch are alike (remember digital doesn’t count). If you said they both had numbers, you’d be wrong. Join the club for the cognitive impaired. The correct answer is they are both measuring instruments.
Next up, it asked me to say as many words as possible in one minute that begin with the letter F except proper names, numbers, words that sound alike, dirty words, foreign words … whoa, wait, now this was getting complicated. I am a dedicated user of a thesaurus. (Do you think I know all the big words I use in these columns?) This spontaneous stuff is asking too much.
Thankfully the test was coming to an end. One more thing. It was time to repeat those five words from the first section. Boy am I in trouble. I could only recall “daisy,” which was the name of our dear, departed dog. I know I said I remember any face. I didn’t say I could remember the word.
So, there you go. I was too chicken to count up my score. After all, I have no intention of running for president or any public office. If someone stops me to say how much they like this column, I’ll just say, “thank you” and be on my way.
Editor’s note: Mattapoisett resident Dick Morgado is an artist and retired newspaper columnist whose musings are, after some years, back in The Wanderer under the subtitle “Thoughts on ….” Morgado’s opinions have also appeared for many years in daily newspapers around Boston.
Thoughts on…
By Dick Morgado