Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

 

Dear Sir:

I wish to respond, with feeling, to Sunny Glessner’s witty question What Memory? – (El Ojo del Lago, April 2013) Sunny writes, “My challenge is my memory,” and goes on to say that she has used lists for years, “but now I forget to take the list with me.”

I myself having been a ‘list maker’ know that Sunny is not alone. I too would forget to take my list; and having made a list instead of using my memory, I’d arrive at the grocery store empty-headed, trying to remember what I had done with my list – did I ever have a list? I’d have to return home empty-handed to know.

Then one day the Angel of Light flooded my brain. Of course! Why did I never think of it before! All I needed was a list, anybody’s list. I looked down the isle; found a shopper using a list; I quietly approached her and said, “Foolishly, I have left my list at home. I wonder – may I borrow your list when you are done with it?” For a moment the woman stared at me; then she said, pointing to a man farther along, “D’you see that man vacantly staring at the shelves, I have his list; he will want it back. Sorry. You’ll have to ask him.”

Sunny Glessner may be asking What memory? but thank goodness, she is not asking What Humor? To lose that in old age would be the worst loss of all. Thanks, Sunny.

johnclintoncawood@prodigy.net.mx