Plans to study autism proposed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have been met with backlash from advocacy groups and local families in Washington state.
I was having a discussion with a couple of guys the other day, and we were recalling some other fellows we hadn’t seen in a while. Or perhaps I should say that we were attempting to recall. “Oh, yeah, you remember the guy,” I said.
“Don or Dan or something. He kinda looked like this.” I made a grimacing expression, hoping for a reasonable version of the guy’s resting-face glare.“He looked mean as all get-out, but he was nice,” I continued. “His wife now – she was the mean one of that bunch.” The third fellow in this conversation is a good 40 years younger, and he watched the exchange as if we old dogs were performing magic tricks. But these dialogues are more and more common among my cohort these days, and we muddled through as if it were perfectly normal – because any more, it is. People are also reading… An hour later, it came to me, and I took out my phone and texted the name to my fellow mis-rememberer.There’s an old yarn that I’ve enjoyed for years, in which a couple of guys are talking without being able to remember the names of people or places they were talking about. One guy was trying to think of the name of a restaurant when suddenly he asked the other: “What do you call that flower with the stickers on the stem? You know, the one that smells good?”“Yes, yes, that’s it!” the first guy exclaimed. The he turns toward the kitchen and calls out to his wife: “Hey, Rose, what was the name of that restaurant…?” Try as I might, I can’t deny that the gradual creep of time is taking a toll on me. On a Zoom call this week, I had leaned back in my chair in such a way that I had slipped mostly out of the camera’s field of view. When I noticed my window on the screen, the image showing only from the eyebrows up, I saw my grandfather’s pate, with its wisps of gray hair and smattering of age spots. I have no interest in looking young, but I try to keep my mind sharp by reading, doing puzzles, and watching shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, and I will feel a little too smug when I get a question right, particularly when the contestants don’t. We’ve set up our Tivo recorder to capture every episode of Jeopardy! and will usually watch one at lunch.And then there are days like last Thursday, when play after play went by without my having known a single answer. For what it’s worth, neither did the contestants; by the first commercial break, all three were deep in the hole. If I’m being honest, I’ll confess that I am in awe of these Jeopardy! contestants, particularly those with lightning-fast recall of even the most arcane or picayune tidbits of information. There is a young woman – early 20s, I’d say – who had one of the more impressive runs in recent memory. She’s what I’d call a flibbertigibbet – chatty, giggly, lots of nervous energy and hand-waving. But her mind is impressive; I can’t imagine she’d ever have to wait several hours for someone’s name to bubble to the surface. I like to blame it all on the birthdays that have collected behind me and those like me, and it’s good to spend time with people who toil in the same beanfields – those who, like me, wind up out in public with stray patches of whiskers missed by the razor and overlooked by presbyopic eyes. We swap advice on home remedies for gout and consult each other on technological conundrums when what we really need is someone’s grandchild. But mostly we encourage each other in ways that aren’t overtly supportive. I have a friend with whom I have corresponded for many years, and usually, she signs off any missive with a five-word phrase: Keep passing the open windows. It began as an inside joke. We’re both fans of the writer John Irving, and the phrase comes from his novel Hotel New Hampshire, in which one character kills herself by self-defenestration, prompting family members to continually remind each other to avoid the same fate. I think we all need that reminder every now and then – perhaps not specifically, but if it applies, it’s good advice at any age. Bill Perkins is editorial page editor of the Dothan Eagle and can be reached at bperkins@dothaneagle.com or 334-712-7901. Support the work of Eagle journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at dothaneagle.com. Follow Bill Perkins Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
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