5 posts tagged “memory”

http://dl.screenaustralia.gov.au/module/61/

Jack Hazlitt - A World War 1 digger (soldier) reflects on his work as a runner in the trenches at Gallipoli. Hopping across the trenches in full view of the Turkish snipers, the average life of a runner was 24 hours.

 When war broke out in 1914, Jack lied about his age and enlisted in the Australian Infantry Forces. He survived the war, serving at Gallipoli and in France and Belgium. Jack Hazlitt was a daredevil, the archetypal Australian of a past era. His interview for Australian Biography was his last. He died in 1993, aged 96

THINK ABOUT IT...

ANZAC - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

If you remember back a couple of days you may remember that I wrote that Mr FD had reversed his usual habit of loosing things on his trips away and this time had left his phone at the airport before he even left? Well, he reverted back to his usual habit in the end. Sad isn't it?

He left his credit card at a pub on the Atherton Tableland (North Queensland) where he stopped for lunch. He was almost back to Cairns when he remembered and so had to turn around and go back for it. At least he remembered. I have spent  a lot of time cancelling credit cards over the years. I have also tracked down mobile phones in taxis in distant cities. We wont go into the effort that went into getting him home from Holland when his passport, briefcase and laptop were stolen in Amsterdam. I had this vision that his plane would finally land in Brisbane and a door would open, and Mr FD thrown out onto the tarmac. He would be naked except for a little tag hung around his neck, saying Please Return to Australia.

Of course on the home front he cannot be trusted to switch the stove off, and is under severe instructions not to walk away from the coffee machine when he is making his coffee. We have already had one explosion and we are onto our second machine! I long ago bought an iron that switches off after 15 minutes of non movement. In the very first years of marriage he was banned from putting bottles of beer and the like in the freezer to chill quickly as I got tired of cleaning beer and glass fragments from the frozen peas.

We have lost count of the books he has donated to airlines, the bottles of after shave left in motel bathrooms and the underpants left under motel beds.

I put most of this down to the fact that men cannot multitask. Sorry, but it is true, I have living proof. They really can only master one thing at a time. They may do that one thing really well, but ask for a second task to go alongside and chaos ensures. For Mr FD the other task is speaking. He talks. He talks all day. He talks at night, even in his sleep as told previously. He talks over other people. He is perpetually in conversation, often with himself as I have tuned out long ago, but he rarely notices. So if he is speaking, he forgets to pay attention to all the other stuff - like credit cards, phones, luggage, coffee machines. And so the loss ensures.Or the explosion.

Luckily he has a great sense of direction and somehow manages to always find his way home. It probably helps that our house is in a totally different style to every other house in the street!  

In years to come, when you are asked what do you remember most about Barack Obama's election, what will be the most dominant memory for you?

Fo me it will be Jesse Jackson's tears

Jesse Jackson

The New Americn Revolution

It's a brand new morning of a brand new day.
It's a brand new chance to make it all work out some way.
Hey! It's a brand new morning and a brand new smile.
It's some brand new things you just might see in a while;
Then your life takes on a bright new shiny style.
Forget the past now, it's an ancient history.
It's a time to be reborn, it's a time for being free.
Someone might be waiting here outside where you can see-
And you just might see -
Yeah, you just might see -

That it's a brand new morning with a brand new sun,
And it's just as warm for you as it is for everyone.
Don't just walk, come on, get it on, get on the run.
It's a brand new morning, ooh, it's a brand new day.
Forget the past now, it's an ancient history.
It's a time to be reborn, it's a time for being free.
Someone might be waiting here outside where you can see -
And you just might see -
Yeah, you just might see -

That it's a brand new morning with a brand new sun,
And it's just as warm for you as it is for everyone.
Don't just walk, come on, get it on, get on the run.
It's a brand new morning, ooh, it's a brand new day.

              Bob Seger

Today would have been my Dad's 84th birthday, had he not died in 2000. I still miss him every day. I can't quite remember how it started but we all started to call him Fred at some stage - it wasn't even close to his own name, but somehow we attached it to him. He was the man who made me proud to be who I was. I grew up under the fine umbrella of his honesty and good will to all men. I would often be told that my father was one of the great men of the district and that made me proud of him, and grateful to be his child. He was a John Wayne type of man - loved his woman, his family, and his horses and gave us all the best possible life he could.

I miss you Fred. I would give anything to hear your voice one more time...to have a day together...we weren't ready for you to go, and we miss you more with each year.

Happy Birthday, Fred...you did well.

I can remember how many sons where born to Bing Crosby and his first wife (4). I can't remember to sign my tax form and to post it however. What can't I remember the important things that really matter, like what I was just going to say to a work colleague, instead of  the names of all Elizabeth Taylor's husbands? I can recite the original family tree of the Horton family from Days of Our Lives, but not remember to put the cooler bag out for the milkman on the two nights he calls each week?

Why does my brain retain stupid worthless trivia when I have to think hard to remember what year my eldest niece was born? I also have the habit of mixing up words. It is a family trait. Instead of saying please pass me the salt, I will ask for the porpoise. That one I put down to multi tasking and doing too many things at once when tired. My mother has done it all her life and now I have started. It is funny when she does it, we roll our eyes and look knowingly at each other the old woman is going over the edge we sigh, old age. But it isn't old age. It is a brain that works on its own fuzzy logic. Grandma also calls me by my brother's name, or her sister's - always has always will. I name my children correctly but I do call my work colleagues by my children's names.....not good, doesn't really impress them that I have attention to detail.

I just hope that I don't become a sad old lady who can't recognise her family, but can name remember Clint Eastwood's charachter's name in the television series Rawhide. and the order of all the Kings and Queens of England since Henry VII! If only I could turn this talent to good!