Memory

You all will remember the post from a year and a half ago, in which Grace dragged me over to her friend Mocha's house to play. That was an early indicator of her amazing memory. During our many hundreds of walks together, she has shown me dozens of times that her memory is far superior to mine.

• We are walking along North Street when suddenly and urgently she indicates that she wants to cross to the other side. I look for the usual reasons - dog, cat, squirrel, human  - and see nothing. We cross over safely, and I am reminded that the last time we were here, there was bread thrown out into the yard for the birds. It is there again, and I drag her away. She leads me down an alley and runs up onto the porch of a house where the resident gave her a treat once. She digs up a bone she buried months ago. And the opossum tail. << shudder>>

My favorite example happened a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning. On Sunday mornings, my priority is to get the business done and get home, so I can shower and dress for church. This Sunday she took us a whole different way from the usual - not to the park, the VFW or even Mocha's house. West on Chestnut Street, south across Elizabeth Park and Orthopaedic Associates, and straight to Burns Avenue. We never go this way. As we began walking south on Burns I saw what she remembered. The night before, on our late walk, we came down Burns from the other end and passed a party in a driveway, complete with a whole roasted pig. It was all I could do to keep her out of the driveway, especially since a couple of the revelers wanted to pet her and make the usual fuss over her. She knew from the time we stepped out the door, that she wanted to return to the scene and check for scraps. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had already dashed up the driveway and snagged a chunk of pig. 

I wish my memory was half as good as hers.