Last night I couldn't sleep and began to think about people and events in my life, and I wandered back nearly sixty years to my high school buddy, Joe. Joe died in a headon collision when he was seventeen years old. Headed back to the naval base in San Diego after a trip home for Christmas. He stopped by the radio station to say so long, then later that night I pulled the AP newswire and read his name in a story that broke my heart.
I still have his face stored somewhere in my head. How he looked, how he soared over a pole vault bar, how he sounded when he talked. All of it, still with me. Most of all, how he sounded when he talked. I can hear it exactly. If he walked in the room right now and said something I would recognize his voice.
I thought of all the people who've touched my life. Family, friends, enemies, TV news anchors; many of them still around, some of them gone on to wherever it is we go. Every single one of them left their voice with me.
My brain, without my consent or participation, has somehow catalogued all those voices, matched them with faces and stored the whole shebang. Your brain does it, too. Don't you think that's wonderful? I do.
