April 27, 2016 Chatterbox
Betty Kaiser
My husband’s stepmother, Mae Kaiser, was in her early 90’s
when she began initiating me into the perils of getting older. This successful
businesswoman outlived two husbands and married for the third time in her 80s.
Until the day she died, she loved ballroom dancing, socializing and keeping up
with the youngsters in the family. She was a marvel of nature and a joy to
know.
She was particularly known for her prodigious memory. Also
her handwritten notes. Each one was a labor of love because she suffered from
severe macular degeneration in an era before the age of modern treatments. She
used a large magnification lamp to help her see the thick black words she wrote
on lined paper. Sometimes the words ran off the page and were unintelligible but
we cherished them all. At the end of her life she was nearly blind but still
writing.
It was from Mae that I started hearing such sayings, as
“These are not the golden years I was expecting. They’re bronze!” Or, “You know
you’re getting old when everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.”
And finally, with a tired sigh she would sadly whisper “My get up and go has
gone and went.”
I was a young whippersnapper in my 40s when Mae came into
the family. And frankly, I never gave it a thought that I, too, would one day
suffer from the consequences of being “older.” Youth never does. As the saying
goes, I didn’t drink, smoke, chew or go with boys that do! I thought my boundless
energy would last forever because I was the queen of aerobic exercise into my
late 50s.
Guess what? I got older anyway. I had gray hair in my 40s. In
my 50s I started wearing make up and eyeglasses. In my 60s I developed laugh
lines and wrinkles. And the day I turned 70 my brain’s retrieval system slowed
down. In the words of a former 90-year old neighbor, “I had turned another
corner.” That is seldom good.
“Brain drain”
aka a ‘broken memory retrieval system’ is serious business. That’s what happens
when the answer to a question is on the tip of my tongue but I just can’t quite
spit it out. I’ve come to believe that smart phones were invented especially
for seniors like me. I still know my social security number and everyone in the
family’s birthdays but don’t ask me what their addresses are!
This retrieval problem has now expanded to email quizzes
that readers love to send me. Last year my retrieval level reached a new low
when a relative sent me the following quiz on Mental Health Day. She said, “This
is a quiz for old people who know everything!” She was either being sarcastic
or she doesn’t know me very well because I failed it miserably.
So, I’m sharing this quiz with you. There are only nine
questions. They are straight questions with no trick answers. But here’s a
warning: if you find yourself searching your brain for an answer that is right
on the tip of your tongue and it won’t come out...you may have brain drain just
like the rest of us. Good luck and no peeking at the answers first!
A Brain Drain Quiz
1. Name the one sport in which neither the
spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest
ends.
2. What famous North American landmark is
constantly moving backward?
3 Of all vegetables, only two can live to
produce on their own for several growing seasons. All
other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear
brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the
bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside
the bottle?
6. Only three words in standard English
begin with the letters ' dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.
7. There are 14 punctuation marks in
English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?
8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is
never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except
fresh.
9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear
on
your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'
Answers To Quiz:
1. The one sport in which neither the
spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest
ends: Boxing.
2. North American landmark constantly
moving backward: Niagara Falls. The rim is worn down about two and a half feet
each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every
minute.
3. Only two vegetables that can live to
produce on their own for several growing seasons: Asparagus and rhubarb.
4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside:
Strawberry.
5. How did the pear get inside the brandy
bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when
they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place
for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at
the stems.
6. Three English words beginning with dw:
Dwarf, dwell and dwindle...
7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English
grammar: Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question
mark, exclamation point, quotation mark, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and
ellipses.
8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold
frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh: Lettuce.
9. Six or more things you can wear on your
feet beginning with 'S': Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis,
skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.
Betty Kaiser’s Chatterbox is about people,
places, family, and other matters of the heart.
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