IF I’VE TOLD YOU ONCE . . . My child, when I begin telling the same old stories again and again, repeating myself, living in the past, please be tolerant, patient, and remember that someday, you too will be in your anecdotage.
The above prose poem was written some time ago when I realized I’d been doing a little too much of “living in the past.” That condition, once commonly known as one’s “dotage” or “second childhood” was thought to be nothing more than a part of the process of growing old and the term “dotage” seems to have disappeared from common use. Today, since science has been investigating the different forms of dementia, we are more aware that it is the loss of short-term memory that has been, most likely, the reason our elderly seem to prefer the past to the present. While it may be frustrating for those who suffer from those conditions and irritating for the families who must deal with the problems it causes, there may be an up-side that we shouldn’t too readily overlook.
A friend of mine wrote that her mother’s reminiscences of her past, while not always based on accurate memory, have provided hours of insight into her mother’s personality, values and beliefs; and have provided the grandchildren with a family history and understanding of what life was like for her so many years ago when there were no television, internet, jet planes, cell phones, credit cards, supermarkets or virtual reality. The memories are not always accurate and the great aunts would argue about many of the details, but the essence of the past is there. The country schoolhouse was real, and the rows of jam jars and canned vegetables from the garden on shelves in the cellar. Water fights on hot summer afternoons and screened-in sleeping porches on warm, humid nights hadn’t yet been replaced by central air conditioning.
Neighbors stopped in for coffee, helped with chores and passed on local gossip. They shared extra eggs, garden produce and baby-sitting. Clothing was handed down, repaired, remodeled and recycled until eventually ending up as dust rags or braided rugs. Birthday cakes, wedding dresses, sweaters and warm mittens were homemade. The Fuller Brush man called regularly, and even if you didn’t need or buy a hairbrush, scrub brush or new mop head, he always presented you with a free wire-handled pastry brush. Popcorn was raised in the garden, husked and shelled by hand and popped by shaking in a little wire basket over the flame of a wood burning or gas stove and drenched in real melted butter. Rain water was collected in a barrel under the eaves and saved for shampooing hair and watering houseplants. Kids collected polliwogs from the pond and took them to school so everybody could see them start to grow legs and turn into frogs. Sex education wasn’t necessary since farm kids knew all about it and passed on their knowledge to the less informed. Most babies were still being born at home and doctors still made house-calls. Quarantine notices were posted on front doors where patients with highly contagious diseases were being cared for, and no one was allowed in or out.
When my husband came down with scarlet fever at a very young age, his father and older sister were banned from the house and stayed with relatives for the duration. Groceries and other necessities were delivered to the front door and taken into the house only when the delivery boy had departed. It was not known for certain just how the disease was transmitted, so extreme precautions were prescribed. His mother rigorously followed all the rules and precautions. After he was declared no longer contagious, everything in the house had to be disinfected or burned.
I endured a similar quarantine when I suffered from mumps one summer. As it was summer, I was isolated in a separate room of our sleeping porch where nobody but my mother was allowed to enter and the rest of the family was in no danger of exposure. As I look back to those times, I think that perhaps the general public was more willing to listen to the scientists and take their advice than they are today. It might have been the level of education and lack of understanding of the spread of disease or they could have been more frightened of the unknown than are people today. Perhaps the flu of 1918 was still too fresh in memory. Or — maybe they were just smarter.