Memory Banks

Ol’ timers know a lot about piggy banks but what about memory banks? As a former chaplain, I remember how many seniors had considerable savings in CDs and their equivalent. Interest rates as high as 20-percent. But today? Possibly .02 percent. So, we are forced to find alternative places for our nickels and dimes.

In the process, we just might rediscover a memory bank. That is a bank which always pays dividends, never goes out of business, seldom needs refurbishing and is 100% reliable. In the short time where we now live, our bank has changed ownership, and now it has shuttered its doors and we are invited to find another bank with the same name. Banks are interesting objects ranging from under the mattress to a vault in midtown . . .

After finishing a meal, my wife went into the cupboard and pulled out a small filing box of recipes. As she searched for something for another meal, she ran across a letter in the midst of the recipes. Caught by surprise, it was from her mother who was killed over fifty years ago by a driver who had too many . . . She started to read aloud so I could hear. We were reintroduced to a hidden memory bank note which was both a sad memory as well as well as a delightful one.

She mentioned our adoptive grandparents, two sets, by name. Our memory bank spilled out some, but not all, of its valuable contents. We couldn’t forget these delightful substitute grandparents (we lived a couple thousand miles away at the time). Barb and I both reminisced when we were reminded of Art and Marie, Eleanor and Bob and the precious memories they triggered. Memory banks! What a wonderful invention.

Amazing. Every senior (as well as others) has a memory bank. They are inescapable, inevitable and invisible. No one else has access to them. There are no padlocks, no red tape or approval needed. Fortunately, these banks cannot be exhausted, and we can make as many withdrawals as we want.

Your memory bank, just like mine, holds some senior moments along with earlier recollections just waiting to be withdrawn. And the beauty of it is that we can never exhaust, deplete or lose the key to our memory banks. Pretty good deal I’d say.