Names… GAH!!!

Met up with a few folks last night, and grabbed a quick bite,  and one thing that we’re all suffering from is trying to remember some folks names…

Granted we’ve gotten older, and nobody had a cruise book handy, but damn… Callsigns, yes, those we remember, but the ‘real’ names? Not so much… Sigh

And tomorrow it will be even worse, as we start the symposium and no body other than active duty will have name tags on. It’s gonna be a LONG day. Faces AND names? Good luck with that, especially since some folks have changed after thirty or forty years.

Getting old isn’t a lot of fun.

But on a fun note, one of my old flight engineers is now a railroad engineer and inspector, and he got to ride 844 in the run to the Golden Spike celebration last week. AND he got aboard Big Boy, but sadly as an engineer, they aren’t allowed any personal communications devices while in the cab. He’s promised pictures, so those should be interesting!

Comments

Names… GAH!!! — 19 Comments

  1. “Getting old isn’t a lot of fun.”
    That is true, but it sure beats the alternative.

  2. I have the same problem. Someone, who has known me in the past, will come up to me and start a conversation and I draw a blank on their identity. All I can do hold my end and hope the light comes on.

  3. Thank You! I thought it was just me that can’t remember names. And…it always seems to happen at the most awkward time. Like when they’re standing right in front of me.

    • Dogs are better people than most people. Really, that goes for most non-wildferal animals. Yeah, I might be a bit biased. Maybe. Perhaps.

  4. I know what you mean about names. I take my cruse book with me and compare then and now. My biggest problem is know the snipe’s names, and 55 years and 50+ lbs makes recognizing the faces difficult with the book. We scope-dopes didn’t have much interaction with the sun-dodgers below decks. Gives way to a few laughs and YGTOBSM comments.

  5. Don’t you have name tags around? I do, but that’s because I’m with the Boy Scouts. My only military one is on my uniform, in storage for lo! these 30+ years. Well, there’s also one from my Titan II unit reunion.

  6. A cab ride on the UP Big Boy!
    I think I’m going to have to lie down until the giddy feeling passes.

    Names.
    At least I’m at the age where I can just look at the person and say, “I have no idea what your name is, please help me.”

  7. Gah. I’ve gotten so used to forgetting names and faces, I don’t get embarrassed much any more. I’m more interested in the Big Boy pictures forthcoming. 🙂

  8. Oh, yeah. My brain stores faces, but not many of the names that go with them.

  9. I get it with names vs. callsigns, though I’ve never been .mil (only service I was ever in was postal, and I’m much better now, thanks). But as an amateur radio op. I once partook in a conversation with about 7 or 8 others… and being radio, we went bu callsign (or at least suffix thereof). And then I made The Big Mistake. I forgot their names and said, “Hey Mike.” Well, I was the ONLY one NOT called ‘Mike’. This lead to my complaint that “Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named Mike!”

    These days, it seems if you don’t know a woman’s name, guessing it is ‘Nicole’ isn’t an entirely bad idea. At least where I work there is a whole… confusion… of Nicoles.

  10. Sounds like my last couple of conferences, where comments went from thinking I’d retired to remembering faces from the last 4-5 times, now who are we?

  11. I haven’t been able to remember names for a lot of folks for quite some time now – I’ll remember their face, but when they come up and say, “Hey, Tom, how are you?”, I may remember their organizational affiliation, but I am at a loss for their name.

    My mom always used to say the “Getting old isn’t for sissies!” How true, eh?