My favorite new super power

I’ll be filling in for Marilu Henner again tomorrow on her nationally syndicated radio show. (You can hear it here.)  Marilu has this almost freakish ability to remember every day of her life in detail. I’ve tested her. She's the real deal.   I’ll pick a day out of the past – say the day my son was born – and she’ll instantly say, “That was a Tuesday. Election Day.” And then she’ll rattle off who was elected that day. (This was maybe a month ago and I’ve already forgotten who those election winners were.)

It’s called Supeior Autobiographical Memory, and it’s a legitimate thing. I know because 60 MINUTES once did a piece on it. (That’s how we determine legitimacy these days. INSIDE EDITION – I’m still iffy, 60 MINUTES – must be real, anything on FOX NEWS – not true.)

In the 60 MINUTES piece they found a number of people who have this skill/super power. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of ten of them identified (at least in the United States). They were all given MRI’s and it was determined that a specific portion of their brains was larger. In the case of the guys, their penises were bigger. (Okay, that was a joke but I just couldn’t resist.) But studying this phenomenon might unlock some of the mysteries of improving everyone’s memory or reversing Alzheimer’s Disease.

I asked Marilu the obvious questions. Is this ability a blessing or a curse? Can you still lose your keys? She said it was a blessing, like having her own private Google search engine. All of the other SAM people agreed. Except one. For her it was a curse because every bad or sad thing that ever occurred in her life never left her. Imagine being able to replay exactly how you felt when you were dumped, humiliated at work, or a loved one died? The expression “time heals all wounds” doesn’t apply.

But the others deal with that by putting the bad events in perspective and realizing they are surrounded by many good days. They can relive those too. The euphoria of first love, landing that big job, seeing VOLUNTEERS for the first time.

Leave it to television to take this fascinating skill and turn it into a goofy procedural (UNFORGETTABLE… original working title: THE REMEMBERER). “Wait a minute. He couldn’t be a Vegan. On Wednesday, August 3rd, 1976 I was on a nature hike with my church group and he jumped out of the bushes, killed Lenny Masterson, and started eating him.” “God, you’re amazing. How do you even remember that?”

Can you picture someone with this skill who is a habitual poster on Facebook? Throwback Thursday. “On March 18, 1983 I woke up at 7:15, put on my blue blouse that I got for my birthday on July 24, 1980 from my friend Marcy who hasn’t called since Sunday, November 4th, 2003, and had a bowl of Cheerios and milk that expired on March 21st. Then I took the 56 bus into town, arriving at…” You get the idea.  UN-friend. 

I personally think this would be a cool super power to have… until…

you got old.

Just imagine, being on your deathbed, knowing you only have a few precious moments left. You think back on your life. On September 16, 2014 you spent the whole afternoon reading through Ken Levine’s blog archives, on February 26th, 1998 you waited in line for two hours to see TITANIC, on April 16, 2016 you binge-watched every episode of UNFORGETTABLE. On June 8th, 2020 you went to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

The moral here is simple.  Get out and make this a day worth remembering.