Hayter for March 3, 2024

"What's in a Brain?"

          The last few weeks, I’ve had no energy. Energy-less was I. Now I’ve acquired enough stamina to get some things done. Just a few minutes ago, I replaced the plastic card-holder sleeve in my wallet. It wasn’t fun, but I got it done.

          After I finish our session here, I plan to change out the metal tip of my water hose. The hose connection has been leaking since last August. Yesterday, I purchased a replacement for the end of the hose. I didn’t realize, but it’s called a male mender”.  I’m already learning so much.

          To fix the leak, I have to cut off the end of the hose and attach a new mender. I’ve never intentionally cut off the end of a hose. I was thinking of tossing the entire hose until I saw the price for a new hose. After spending a few hours trying to repair the old hose, I’ll feel better about buying a new one.  

          Yes, the new me, needs, to get serious about fixing things around this place. Towards that end, I got a book off my shelf titled “Do More Better”. Unfortunately, I bought the book three years ago and am still on page 14. Kay told me that I’m a slow reader, but, in fact, it took me only six minutes to read the first 14 pages. The book was non-fiction, so it didn’t grab me.

After writing that last sentence, I have decided to put the book aside and come up with my own ideas about how to do better. That being said, a few years ago, scientists demolished the notion that humans use only 10 percent of their brains.

From what I read, I’m using 100 percent of my brain at this very moment. However, the commands issued from my brain to other parts of my body, vary depending on what I’m trying to do. For example, while sleeping, my brain sends few if any messages to my eyeballs or elbows. I’m guessing that 50 percent of my brain is continually focused on my stomach.  

The need for each of us is to have our brains focused on the important things. You know, exercise, tool sorting, vacuuming, and searching for the remote control. Since birth, my brain has latched onto less important things.  I know the lyrics to 100 old songs. – “Birds sing out of tune and rain clouds hide the moon. I’m okay here I’ll stay…” I haven’t heard Peter and Gordon’s song in decades, but the lyrics have stuck with me like grim death.

My “grim death” analogy was borrowed from the movie back in 1977 titled “One on One” with Robby Benson. By the way, I recommend you see the movie, but after a year or two,  you’ll need to forget the details.

I need to get rid of a lot of the details I’ve stored from old TV series.  Richard Boone played “Paladin”. The opening and closing theme song to the Western was “Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of the man. A knight without honor in a savage land…” 

William Bendix played Chester A. Riley, in ‘The Life of Riley”. While the deceased actor's relatives might like to remember his acting roles, I need to lose the man. It’s nothing personal, I just need to make room for current events. I’ve managed to lose the names of 78 percent of the kids I knew in High School, yet I remember a bunch from junior high. I haven’t seen them in over 50 years, but their names are taking up a lot of space in my noggin.

Let’s face it,  my brain is way too selective. I don’t even care to think of Hugh O’Brian of Wyatt Earp fame. The man is way past dead, yet he and his Buntline special remains… in my brain, which rhymes with train and is currently of no use to me. Unless I’m going to appear on a game show.

I’ve got six pairs of sunglasses. Right now, I’d be fortunate to locate a single pair. Reading glasses? I’ve got over a dozen of them hidden somewhere in this house. An hour ago, I was able to locate only the pair I’m now wearing. As soon as I take it off, something will hide it from me. Kay assures me that she’s not the culprit.   

Now that I’m beginning my brain training, I should be able to do more better. Or, do better more… not be confused with Drew Barrymore who played the little sister in “ET”.

If I have managed to already open up a little brain space, I may learn a lot from the water hose repair that I’m getting ready to undertake. However, first, I’ll to need to return to Home Depot and swap out my female metal bender for a male.

I assumed the end of the hose that attaches to the sprinkler was the female bender. It’s not. It’s the sprinkler that has a female bender. I’ll need to buy the opposite. No worries, I have every confidence that I’ll be needing the female bender sometime this summer. I have every confidence that I will have lost it by then. 

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