“The little grey cells,” says Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s great Belgian detective, touching an index finger to his forehead, “ah, Hastings, they are what matter.” Those little cells representing our brain power — who today does not worry about losing them at too rapid a clip? As early as their forties, people begin making rueful jokes about having Alzheimer’s or Halfheimer’s, trying to kid away quite genuine worries about memory loss.
Two possibilities here: First, many of us truly are losing our memories, or, second, we are called upon to remember more than earlier generations and therefore suffer from overload. I was thinking about this the other night when, in a fit of insomnia, I reviewed all the numbers I am responsible for knowing by heart. I have never added them up, but, were I to do so, I should have an impressively large number. My guess is that my situation — or is it a condition? — is not so different from yours.
The first among the numbers I am responsible for is my own telephone number. In fact, in my case, this means four numbers: We have two phones in our apartment (owing to our needing an extra line for the Internet), there is the phone at my office, and there is our car phone (which we bought as much for security as anything else). Four phone numbers to commit to memory isn’t so bad, but then, in the past few years the phone company has seen fit to change our area code from 312 to 708 to 847, which adds to the complication. Then there are the others I seem to have memorized, numbers of relatives, of friends, of business associates I call frequently. These constitute another 15 or so numbers. Add in here, for out-of-towners, their area codes (and, increasingly, their changed area codes).
New numbers have been added to my repertoire in recent years. Begin with the PIN that allows me entry into my checking account at cash stations. I now live in a building whose inside garage requires a security number that must be tapped into the door lock to get from the garage into the building. The building changes this number from time to time, and I occasionally find myself tapping in the old number. Then there is my e-mail password, which isn’t a number but might as well be; roughly every four months I get an e- mail telling me that I have to change this, too.
I long ago memorized my car’s license number. I haven’t memorized either my checking-account or savings-account numbers, though my bank asks me to write out the number 39000 on all my savings deposits and withdrawals. I have a vault number, which I suppose I don’t have to have memorized, but which, for extra credit (what a terrific student!), I memorized anyway. I have nearly memorized my American Express card number, though there is no real need to do so.
I do have the birthdays of children and now grandchildren to remember; so, too, my wedding anniversary. Then there are all the historical dates a supposedly cultured gent is supposed to know: Bastille Day, Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox, the two Russian revolutions, the date of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Of all the theories of memory, the one I like best — I do not say believe in — is that which compares the memory to a crowded closet, so that when one puts something new in something old must go out. If this were so with numbers, I shouldn’t mind getting rid of a fair amount of sports statistics that I acquired when young. I no longer need to know that Hack Wilson, who once drove in 190 RBIs, wore a size 5 shoe; or that Roy Emerson has won more grand slam tournaments, 12, than any other tennis player, living or dead (Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg are second with 11); or that Wilt Chamberlain had a lifetime freethrow shooting percentage of only 51 percent. But, damn it, I do know these numbers and can’t seem to shake them.
Meanwhile, I seem to have lost some fundamental information. Without looking it up, I can no longer tell the number of feet in a mile. I am not sure of the difference between a meter and a yard, though I am fairly sure the former is longer. I sometimes feel lucky to remember the date of the 1832 Reform Bill.
How many of what M. Poirot calls his little grey cells do I use up just trying to retain all these figures in my head? If you know the number, please, do me a favor, keep it to yourself. I haven’t room for it anyway.
JOSEPH EPSTEIN
