6A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL April 27, 2016
Chatterbox
The
2015
e Grove
Cottag
er
m
Cha b
merce
of Com
s
Busines
of the
Year
Older? Brain drain is frustrating
but not fatal!
BY BETTY KAISER
For the Sentinel
M
y husband’s stepmother, Mae
Kaiser, was in her early 90s when
she began initiating me into the perils of
getting older. This successful business-
woman outlived two husbands and mar-
ried for the third time in her 80s. Until the
day she died, she loved ballroom danc-
ing, socializing and keeping up with the
youngsters in the family. She was a mar-
vel of nature and a joy to know.
She was particularly known for her
prodigious memory. Also her handwrit-
ten 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 mag-
nifi cation 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 fi nally, 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 con-
sequences 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 aero-
bic exercise into my late 50s.
Guess what? I got old anyway. I had
gray hair in my 40s. In my 50s I started
wearing makeup and eyeglasses. In my
60s I developed laugh lines and wrinkles.
And the day I turned 70, my brain’s re-
trieval system slowed down. In the words
of a former 90-year old neighbor, “I had
turned another corner.” That is seldom
good.
“Brain drain,” a.k.a. a ‘broken memo-
ry 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 ex-
panded 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 miser-
ably.
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 fi nd your-
self 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 fi rst!
9. Name six or more things that you can
wear on your feet beginning with the let-
ter ‘S.’
A Brain Drain Quiz
4. The fruit with its seeds on the out-
side: Strawberry.
1. Name the one sport in which neither
the spectators nor the participants know
the score or the leader until the contest
ends.
5. How did the pear get inside the bran-
dy 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.
2. What famous North American land-
mark 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 re-
planted every year. What are the only two
perennial vegetables?
4. What fruit has its seeds on the out-
side?
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?
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.
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No elgibility requirements.
2. North American landmark constant-
ly 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.
541-942-0456
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6. Three English words beginning with
dw: Dwarf, dwell and dwindle...
7. Fourteen punctuation marks in Eng-
lish grammar: Period, comma, colon,
semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe,
question mark, exclamation point, quota-
tion 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. Contact her at 942-1317 or
via e-mail — bchatty@bettykaiser.com
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Mom has always
been so patient,
but now when I
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she gets angry.
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8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that
is never sold frozen, canned, processed,
cooked, or in any other form except
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