DAVENPORT 20570

Last Thursday night, I attended a meeting with a group of men from my church.  After listening to a challenge from our pastor, eight of us gathered around a table to discuss the pastor’s message.  I did not know three of the men in our group.

As we made introductions, I noticed that one of those men, Craig, wrote down the names of those he was meeting for the first time.  I was doing the same thing.  I wrote the words Darrell, Craig and Pat.  I knew that if I did not write them down, I would have forgotten them by the next morning.  That’s just how my aging brain functions with short-term memory.

I have been doing this for years.  I meet someone.  I write down their name.  I review their name and associate it with their face for a few days, until it sticks.  It’s like a third-grader memorizing his multiplication tables by using flash cards.

As Craig and I continued conversing, he mentioned that he sometimes has trouble remembering yesterday, but he has no trouble remembering his phone number from when he was five years old.  Then it occurred to me that Craig and I share the same trait. 

I don’t always remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember my phone number from when I was five years old, nearly sixty years ago.

Davenport 20570.

Standing beside my grandmother's car in 1956 with my grandmother, my big sister and my little brother at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

Three siblings in front of the fireplace at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

The whole family in the back yard at the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

Three siblings with two friends on the patio of the house where our phone number was Davenport 20570.

A first grader who was destined to remember his phone number nearly sixty years later.