RIVER CITY JOURNAL: I'LL TELL YOU WANT I THINK... AS SOON AS I REMEMBER

* And don't get all high and mighty just because you tell me the names of all your cousins' children.

I've been a victim of oldtimer's memory loss since I was 16 years old.

Since my 16th birthday, actually.

That was the day I took my driver's license exam at City Hall in my favorite hometown in the Ozarks west of here.

I passed the written test, and the examiner asked me where my car was so we could go take the driving test.

I forgot to tell him my folks hadn't given me permission to take the driving test.

So we got in the car and headed for Main Street.

My heart was thumping so hard I thought the examiner was going to ask me to pull over and check for tire bulges. But he didn't seem to notice. He kept his eyes on the clipboard in his lap. He gave me directions -- "Turn left at the next intersection. Go up Iris Street. Parallel park between those two signs." -- without ever looking through the windshield a single time.

Parallel park?

Is that what the man said to do?

I had never parallel parked in my life. Thank goodness I had taken Mr. DeSpain's general math course and had a vague notion of what "parallel" was.

On Kelo Valley, where I grew up, there wasn't a whole lot of call for parallel parking. Parking on the farm generally meant pulling up in front of the house under the shade of a some old Chinese elm trees. The price for having a cool car in the summer was having to drive a car covered with what well-fed birds do while sitting in elm trees.

But parallel park?

I did it. I pulled up next to the signs, put the car in reverse and slipped between those two signs like fresh-churned butter on a hot roasting ear.

It was easy. I kept my eyes closed the whole time.

I figured if the examiner wasn't going to look, I didn't have to either.

That was the first time I parallel parked. It was also the last time I ever parallel parked without having to do a lot of forward-and-backward maneuvering to get just right. I've had my eyes open most of the time.

In spite of my parking triumph, I did not get 100 percent on the driving test. I got docked for improperly parking on a hill. I didn't pull on the emergency brake.

I forgot.

See. Once you start forgetting, you can't stop.

I forget the dumbest stuff.

Like making elaborate plans to do something, and then not doing it.

Here's a familiar example. My wife gets clothes ready to go to the cleaners. She even puts the cleaners bag in the front seat of my car. The big blue bag is meant to be a not-so-subtle reminder that I should drive to the cleaners and give them the bag full of clothes rather than driving all over town with a big blue bag in the front seat.

She quickly discovered that didn't work like it was supposed to.

So she started saying, as I kissed her goodbye in the morning, "Don't forget the cleaners."

Forget? How could I possibly forget? You reminded me last night. You put the big blue bag in the front seat of my car, and now you're telling me again not to forget, and I know there's a note pasted on the back door. How could I forget?

I get in my car, back out of the garage and down the driveway. I follow the familiar route out of our neighborhood. At the top of the hill I turn left and head toward Sprigg Street. Forget? See how easy this is?

Faster than you think possible, I'm pulling into the newspaper's parking lot. Forget? Who does she think I am?

I turn off the car. I unfasten my seat belt. I reach over to get the stuff I take back and forth from home to work.

Yep. There's that big blue bag. I'll swear that bag is grinning maliciously and thinking, "The poor slob can't remember anything longer than 10 seconds. And he's not getting any younger."

I've seen a couple of magazine articles recently about Alzheimer's disease. This is no laughing matter, and I don't intend to try to get any grins out of it. Both articles had tests to see if you should seek medical advice for memory loss.

I do OK on these tests. Except for one question, and I'm going to give it to you right now:

What did I tell you in the third sentence of this column? (No fair peeking.)

See?

You won't be surprised when I tell you I forgot to write this column. Folks are tapping their feet while they wait while I furiously type. They're muttering things like, "Gosh, you'd think he write himself a note. Or something."

So, if I've got such a terrible memory, how come I write columns all the time about things that happened before a lot of you were born?

Good question.

Mmmmm ... .

I don't remember the answer.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.