{"id":19238,"date":"2023-01-25T00:40:39","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T00:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=19238"},"modified":"2023-01-24T20:42:08","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T20:42:08","slug":"the-absent-minded-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/25\/the-absent-minded-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
JoEllen Collins\u2014a longtime resident of the Wood River Valley\u2014is a teacher, writer, fabric artist, choir member and unabashedly proud grandma known as \u201cBibi Jo.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M<\/span>ost of us have experienced odd bits of forgetting names or walking into a room and not remembering why you headed that way. As one grows older, these kinds of forgetfulness are often more prevalent and disturbing than ever.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am reminded when I blank out on names, dates, titles of books or movies that I have always been thought of as not paying attention to these words when first heard, possibly not repeating them as soon as spoken.<\/span><\/p>\n

I especially hate this because I think of myself as someone who cares about others. I am a people person.\u00a0Raised in a very loving adoptive family in big cities and with numerous loving relatives,\u00a0I always enjoyed the company of others and was ashamed of myself when I couldn\u2019t call up a friend\u2019s name in an introduction.\u00a0My mother\u2019s nickname for me was \u201cthe absent-minded professor.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I have continued to have dreams about examples of this flaw.\u00a0At UCLA I took a history class with a noted professor who often walked from his office for our 9 a.m. session in his fluffy slippers. We would roll our eyes at the image, but we still respected him as the brilliant scholar he was.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all of my teaching years I have had early-term nightmares that I had to hide behind the door when the bell rang for first period in order to change out of my p.j.s or bathrobe in time to greet students. One day, in East L.A., my early-morning lit-class students kept whispering and giggling. On her way out, one of my brave girls told me that I had put my dress on backwards.\u00a0It was a loose, simple dress, a \u201cshift,\u201d but I still should have noticed that the hip pockets adorned my backside instead of my front.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that unhappy part of my communications has always been lying semi-dormant, ready to embarrass me. A typical \u201cJoEllen\u201d situation I recall is being with two young daughters at Disneyland. In the late afternoon a thunderstorm interrupted our progress to the next attraction. I stopped, aghast that I had forgotten my umbrella. I told the girls I was upset that they were getting wet, but if we hurried to a nearby building, we would not be soaked.\u00a0My youngest pulled on my coat and said, \u201cBut Mommy, you already have the umbrella up.\u201d Yep, we three were already sheltered by the protection of my bright yellow bumbershoot.<\/span><\/p>\n

It has gotten worse.\u00a0I am currently in Newport Beach to share a celebratory dinner honoring a mutual friend.\u00a0I had only met a couple of the guests, so I wrote their names down, to recall them accurately.\u00a0The hosts\u2019 first name initials were \u201cD\u201d and \u201cG,\u201d so I created a mental reminder, thinking of my brother, Doug Gifford. Later, when I voiced my congratulations, I said, \u201cAren\u2019t we lucky to know Diane and George?\u201d Not their names, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n

I now refer to myself as the \u201cabsent-minded professor EMERITUS!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS Most of us have experienced odd bits of forgetting names or walking into a room and not remembering why you headed that way. As one grows older, these kinds of forgetfulness are often more prevalent and disturbing than ever. I am reminded when I blank out on names, dates, titles of books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-on-lifes-terms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19239,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions\/19239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}