MY BRAIN IS MELTING

Or

LESSONS LEARNED FROM DAN QUAYLE

"What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is." -- Vice President Dan (the golden tongue) Quayle misspeaking at the United Negro College Fun. He intended to say their slogan: A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

In recent years I've noticed that I have become more and more absent minded. People tell me that, when one grows old and gray, it's normal to lose a word or two here and there. But is it a natural part of the aging process to completely forget some of the best moments of your life?

Perhaps my drug use in my teens really did wipe out clusters of brain cells, because I've recently noticed some fascinating and at times wonderful things I've done mentioned on the web. Sadly, I have absolutely no memory of it!

A fun website named FISCHER versus WOMEN (http://www.dmv.demon.nl/newpage0.html) presented this shocking bit of history:

Fischer is often portrayed as reluctant to be around women, that they intimidate him and that he does not know how to handle himself around them. Jeremy Silman knew Bobby Fischer around 1962.

Wow! This means that when I was seven or eight years old, I was hanging out with Bobby! How cool is that? The site then goes on to give a story that I apparently shared with the public:

One time we were at the beach and Bobby saw a pretty girl sitting by herself. He went up to her and said, "I'm Bobby Fischer, the great chess player." It was a good opening gambit, but she had never heard of him. Her reply made him realize she was foreign, so he asked where she was from. She said, "Holland." Bobby said, "Do you know Max Euwe?" (The Dutch former World Champion). She'd never heard of him. Now Bobby had run out of ideas. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

This gets better and better, I was not only close to Fischer when I was seven (That's one precocious seven-year-old! I had memorized the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA before my sixth birthday and was obviously ready to explore the world head on.), but I also went to the beach with him so we could look at the girls. Such happy memories!

EXCEPT, I have no recollection of ever doing these things! What does this mean? Why has this memorable slice of my life vanished like "spit on a griddle" (to quote Nastassja Kinski in the movie drama/musical ONE FROM THE HEART)?

I have since gotten over this "missing time" episode and accepted that something traumatic (alien abduction?) wiped all early Fischer events from my brain. However, proof soon appeared that showed just how far gone I really am. Check out this excerpt from WIKIPEDIA:

Jeremy Silman (born August 25, 1954) is an American International Master of chess. He has won the US Open, the American Open and the National Open. In times past he was the coach of the US junior national chess team. He is one of the few players to have defeated Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in competitive play. He is the author of more than thirty-five books.

Oh noooo! I've been lamenting my birthday like clockwork, year after year, on August 28th. Yet now I find out that I was born on the 25th! Okay, I guess this happens (does it?), but there was good news too. You see, I always thought of Jeremy the chess player as being a bit of a mediocrity. Yet, now I find that, at some point in my vanished past, I fairly and squarely defeated both Karpov and Kasparov in tournament play! Yippee!!!! I might not remember it, but I'm damn proud!

So, if anyone out there has scores to these games, perhaps you could take pity on a man that has clearly lost his mind (or doesn't have a mind at all, if we are to believe Mr. Quayle) and share them with me. In the meantime, I'm going to scour the web and see what other wonderful (but forgotten) things I've accomplished in my life.