Just before we left on vacation, it was suggested that we watch the movie “Mystic River,” with Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.  It didn’t have anything to do with where we were traveling, but rather a “must see” Academy Awards performance.  It was hard for either my wife or I to believe that we didn’t see it, especially since we watch a lot of movies.  While we were watching it the other night after our return, my wife knew right away that we had seen it before.  In fact, she said that we watched it together.  I did not remember any of it and found that rather disturbing!

I have kept a diary since I began dating my wife that extends back about seventeen years.  I started it simply because she has such a great memory for details.  It’s what she calls the “chip.”  I apparently don’t have a chip, so the diary helps me remember details about our relationship.  It’s amazing to me how little I remember from my past, but I can “seek and find” almost anything from the past 17 years in my frequently updated Word Document.  For example, I searched “Mystic River” and found that we went to an afternoon matinee on February 1,  2004.  It was Super Bowl Sunday, and the halftime show featured Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” with Justin Timberlake.  I remember that!

We were watching the Super Bowl at a friend’s house, who had just installed a home theater system and wanted to show off his new big screen High Definition (H.D.) television.  At that point, only a very small percentage of homes had the technology.  We left at halftime, because our dog was having some health issues.  I was running the CBS Television affiliate in Lafayette, Indiana at this time, so the whole transition from analogue to high definition was a big deal!  In fact, I had gone to the very first H.D. broadcast at The Ballpark in Arlington on March 31, 1998, opening day for the Texas Rangers.  My company produced that broadcast to be shown via satellite to a special reception attended by members of congress and the FCC.  It was very instrumental in the decision to approve the monumental change in how we watch television today.  The 2000 Superbowl was the first major sporting event broadcast to the general public in High Def.  It just shows how long the whole process took, nearly six years before the very first home theater systems were affordable enough for purchase.  The 2004 Super Bowl was the first I watched High Def in someone’s home, and another key reason why I recall that particular day!

I did not see the “wardrobe malfunction” live, since we were on our way home.  I also didn’t watch the end of the game when I got home, and don’t remember even the final score.  However, when I got to work the next morning, I was inundated with phone calls and e-mails condemning us for showing nudity on T.V. – viewers were after our license!  That whole week was a blur, as organized campaigns began against CBS and affiliates like ours.  It was much ado about nothing in retrospect, considering what is acceptable on television today, but I felt my job was in jeopardy and people were angry.  Their children were watching, and they trusted us to provide wholesome content!  We operated with a six-second delay for our local programming to protect against these types of incidents, but relied on CBS to protect that content.  There was a lot of embarrassment, finger-pointing, and apologizing.  Thanks Janet!

“Mystic River” is a disturbing movie, and Sean Penn was exceptional in his role, but apparently it wasn’t a memorable movie for me.  At first, I was concerned that my “Mystic Memory” about the movie was a beginning stage of “old age” memory loss.  I was disturbed that it didn’t stick in my memory bank, or that simply the bank was closed today!  My panic focused on my father and his battle with Alzheimer’s (it’s not funny that I can’t ever remember how to spell it correctly either).  When my thoughts finally settled, I remembered even 20 years ago when I would go to the local video store and rent a movie that I had already seen, and wouldn’t know it until I had settled in to watch it.  This happened time after time!  It’s probably one of the reasons that I included movies that we watched in my personal diary.  I’m not losing my mind yet – I just never had the ability to remember movies I’ve watched and the actors in them or books I’ve read, and the authors that wrote them!  It’s also a good reason why I’ll never win at Jeopardy! and that I’m grateful for Google as a memory recall aid!