Cousin Rose's furnace broke down last night in the midst of our coldest cold snap of the year. With windchills approaching -25, she was shivering in a house that was fortunately still at 63 degrees, but knowing how sensitive she is to cold, it still made me worry.
My ability to have total recall of certain events (photographic memory, if you will) may have helped her a little when she called yesterday, although the effect is likely minor. She called me to find out when her furnace was installed. For the record, it was installed in the spring of 1988... my grandmother was beginning the onset of Altheimers disease, and my mother wanted grandma to be comfortable. The new electric start furnace replaced an old 25-year old metal hulk that made her gas bills soar. I guess what helped the photographic memory in this case was that I was always at grandma's house when my mother was there during that time.
Rose started her conversation by saying, "You know more about this house than I do." To an outsider, they would scratch their heads: Rose has been there since 1990; I only lived there from 1999-2000. But to an insider like me, I knew what she was going for.
What's the key to the photographic memory for me? Strange to say, it's the photo albums.
My mom maintained the albums for a few years until I showed an interest in putting the photos into new albums. She labelled the old albums quite well and everything was chronologically ordered. What little was out of place was still properly labelled. Just the act of transferring photos served to refresh my memories of who was in the photos and when they were taken.
Additionally, through the first years of what's become a nine-year personal struggle for me, I kept poring over the albums and trying to relive those memories; countless Christmas mornings with the relatives were always photographed in bulk. In a typical year, in fact, the Christmas gatherings and Niagara Falls trips would constitute half of the photos we'd take. It was more a tradition to unearth the camera for those events versus taking photos of the "everyday".
I also used to keep a notebook (since repossessed by the evil uncle) that would list the year of every modification done to our house in Southgate. Out of boredom, I'd re-read those notes instead of pursuing a novel at the library. Then the information would stick without needing to go back to the notebook. The popular music books I collected served much the same purpose when it came to recalling music history.
My ability for total recall has been acknowledged by many family members through the years. I won't brag about this ability, but I gain pleasure in knowing it can help others in big or small ways.
This deep freeze, by the way, is supposed to last most of the week, so I am hoping Rose can get that furnace fixed or replaced with no problem. It couldn't have picked a worse time to conk out.
