Measuring Time

I always admired people who have a knack for remembering things like the names of our Presidents in order of their term, every state capital in alphabetical order and even the mascot for each Division I college football team.

I equally respect people who have such a keen sense of time they are never late for anything. I once knew a manager who began his weekly sales meeting exactly on time, starting with the most important information first, whether anyone else was there or not. It was a little extreme, a lot eccentric, but quite effective.

Even more amazing to me are people who can recite the month, day and year of a wide range of events beyond the obvious birthdays and anniversaries, including things like the day they got their driver’s license, the date they stopped smoking or even the date of a first date.

I have never been one of those people.

My sense of dates and time goes something like this (in order of oldest to most recent): before I was alive, when I was little, a wicked long time ago, back when I was in school, a long time ago, a couple of years ago, not that long ago, just a couple of days ago, a little while ago and now. Which seems to have worked out fine so far, as people appear to understand what I mean without my having to get into specifics.

Unless of course I’m cornered by a question I should know, like when a member of alumni relations at Salem State University asked me what year I graduated, assuming that would be an easy question for me to answer. I muttered some small talk as I miraculously recalled that I graduated Salem High School in 1978 and discreetly counted out four more years on my fingers under the table to figure out the answer. Since then I’ve been taunted by the chipper greeting of “Hi Beth, Class of 1982!” reminding me that an acquaintance remembers significant dates in my life better than I do.

Major local sports events fall into similar time frames. While its been a couple of years since the Patriots and Red Sox won a championship, the Celtics won one not that long ago and the Bruins were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs just a couple of days ago. Everyone knows what I mean without getting into specifics, which most of them will aptly fill in for me anyhow, conveniently concealing my ignorance.

But while I’m hopeless at remembering when things happened, I am great at remembering how I felt when things happened. So while I have to refer to my resume for the actual date I started working at the Boston Herald, I vividly remember that on my first day I wore a dusty pink pantsuit with huge shoulder pads and sheer sleeves (sadly, this is 100% true) and went to a Thai restaurant for lunch with the Marketing Director who got pad thai, and I got a bowl of soup. Perhaps my brain has no room for dates precisely because it is full of random, useless details such as these.

And although even I remember the iconic date of September 11, I still can’t easily recall the year. But I’ll never forget the fear of the unknown that permeated the office as employees begged to go home to be with family and the eerie quiet as I drove home later in the day when the world seemingly stood still as we all realized our world had changed forever, adding another dimension to my timetable, and everyone else’s; before 9/11, and post 9/11.