What146;s the code to the vault?

And why don8217;t I have a politician8217;s memory for names? As a reporter for The Minneapolis Tribune in 1965, I covered Hubert H Humphrey8217;s first visit to his home state as vice president. Everywhere he went, he greeted people by name and asked about their relatives, also by name. And seven hours after being introduced to a half-dozen reporters, he said before departing: 8220;Goodbye, Miss Brody. I8217;ll give your regards to Brooklyn next time I8217;m there.8221;

When I8217;m introduced to a new person, the name is gone from my memory before the handshake is over. Probably it was never there to start with, because I8217;m a visual, not an aural, learner. If a new acquaintance has no name tag, a verbally stated name goes in one ear and out the other, bypassing my brain8217;s memory cells.

All through school, I took voluminous notes and underlined every important sentence in my textbooks. No matter how hard I tried to learn by listening, the lesson was out of my head by the time I left the classroom.

Why do I still remember the symbols for all the elements known when I took chemistry 48 years ago, but don8217;t recall such things?

When I complained to my 30-something son, he said, 8220;Mom, by now you8217;ve got so much crammed into your head, something is bound to fall out!8221;

Blocking and Blanking

Few of us escape the experience of walking from one room to another and not remembering why or what for. Chances are an extraneous thought in that brief trek blocked out its original purpose. But if you go back to the first room, you nearly always recall your mission. It8217;s annoying, but not really embarrassing, not like blanking on the name of someone you know well.

Like the time I tried to introduce my stepmother of 25 years to another guest at my party and could not for the life of me think of her first name. 8220;Sandra, I8217;d like you to meet my mother uh, huh, Mrs. Brody,8221; I finally blurted out.

In Carved in Sand, an enlightening and rather reassuring new book on fading memory in midlife, the writer Cathryn Jakobson Ramin speaks of 8220;blocking or blanking when names will not come to mind and words dart in and out of consciousness8221;. Ramin, like me, has often been stopped cold in the middle of writing when unable to think of what she knows is the perfect word. Her research found that 8220;word-retrieval failures occur not because of the loss of relevant memories, but because irrelevant ones are activated.8221;

Daniel L Schacter, psychologist and memory expert at Harvard and the author of The Seven Sins of Memory, notes that the concept of blocking exists in 51 languages and 45 of them have a specific name for it. In English, it8217;s called 8220;tip of the tongue,8221; lapses that become increasingly common and challenging from midlife onward.

8220;People can produce virtually everything they know about a person or everything they know about a word, except its label,8221; Dr Schacter wrote. My friends and I often find ourselves talking about 8220;you know who8221; and 8220;thingamajigs.8221;

How I cope

Mnemonics can be useful, if you can remember them and what they stand for. To remember what I have to do or buy when I can8217;t write it down, I try to concoct an unforgettable mnemonic like 8220;Babies Are Little Children8221; for bananas, apples, lettuce and cereal.

Whenever possible, I associate a new name with a tangible object: 8220;Cucumber8221; for Kirby, the lifeguard at the Y; 8220;ravioli8221; for Ralph, who sits at the desk; and 8220;sherry8221; for Sherry, the locker room attendant.

For fellow Y members, after learning a name, I use it every chance I get: 8220;Hi, Jeanette,8221; 8220;So long, Sue, have a nice day,8221; 8220;Cynthia, you8217;re early today,8221; and 8220;Aviva, how8217;s your new job?8221;

And I continue to say their names aloud even after I think that they are etched in stone in my memory.

At a dinner where I8217;m to be seated with a table of strangers, I check the list of others at the table in advance to help me remember their names when we are introduced. And for groups that meet infrequently, I campaign for name tags. No one should have to remember the names of people she sees once or twice a year.

Though I have long worked in a state of organised chaos I know where everything is, as long as no one moves it, I needed a better system as I advanced in years. Now, every potentially important piece of paper must go in a labelled file even if that file has only one thing in it, and the files stored alphabetically in a labelled drawer or box, lest they never be found again.

Also, I resist all urges to reorganise my files 8212; or my clothes, shoes, groceries or tools 8212; because I seem to remember only the first place I put something. Move it to a new location, and it is lost until and unless I stumble upon it accidentally.

Finally, to remember when things must be done like move the car, pick up the grandchildren and turn off the oven, I invested heavily in good kitchen timers and scattered them about the house.