A Triggered Memory of 1968

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of how a certain odor, the sound of someone's voice, a visit to a favorite place or a variety of other things trigger memories of our deep past. What we often don't do, however, is to linger on that memory or the reason why the memory has become fixed in our consciousness. I think that the thousands of scientists/psychologists engaged in memory research now would be aided by stories of people who can precisely say how the phenomenon of triggered memory/ies works for them. This essay is dedicated to one such personal investigation of a recently triggered memory.

Setting the Context

I was doing some reaserch on the Scarlet Letter, especially the way that Hawthorne used understatement to get his point across. For some reason this task triggered the following sequence of thoughts in my mind: (1) Thinking about understatement brought back Don Adams' (Secret Agent 86 in the TV show Get Smart from the late 1960s) memorable remark, after significant mishaps, "Hm..Missed by that much" (and Adams held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart); (2) Then I said to myself, 'I should look up past episodes of Get Smart to see what I remember after these 40+ years; (3) I found this website, which reviews each of the episodes in the five-year "run" of Get Smart; (4) I began casually scrolling down the page until I encountered a character that immediately focused my attention by triggering more precise memories. It was the character "Hymie." Though the name might suggest a sort of "soft-core" anti-Semitism, I and countless others were probably attracted to him because he was a robot who also had a winsome side to him.

Then, it dawned on me what my favorite and best remembered Get Smart episode was: where Hymie participated in a track meet on the side of the United States as agents of KAOS tried to disrupt it. But, how to find that episode? And why was this the episode that was most firmly fixed in my memory? A little detective work was all that was needed. I noted that the first appearance of Hymie was on Saturday, Jan. 29, 1966--when Hymie a new KAOS weapon, was programmed to kill Professor Shotwire. But Max and 99 (Barbara Feldon) were able to convert Hymie into a good robot, and he decided to get a job at IBM to meet others like him.

Hymie was only supposed to be a one-time character but he proved so popular that he made five subsequent appearances. So, I just continued on that page, doing a "Hymie" search, and I discovered the other episodes. The one that was most firmly fixed in my memory (and I tried to watch every Get Smart episode I could) is entitled "Run, Robot, Run" and aired on Saturday March 2, 1968. That is the episode where KAOS disrupted an international track meet by injuring the US runners and throwers. When all the US stars were out of action, Hymie was enlisted to participate in the high jump, discus throw and mile run.

The Memories Return

So, it all came flooding back to me. I recall Hymie standing on one side of the high jump bar, and jumping over it by bending his knees slightly and then springing over the bar, not even ruffling his suit. Then, I recall him picking up the discus and with the slightest flick of the wrist, flinging it so far that it left the stadium and landed in a garbage can outside the stadium. A street woman eagerly fished it out of the can and put it in her purse. Then, finally, I recall him running the mile. But why, I thought, is this episode, aired on March 2, 1968 so firmly fixed in mind? Then, I knew. That was the precise time in my life when I was in my greatest improvement in track and field performance in my life.

The Autobiographical Context

I had become nearly obsessed with putting the shot in the summer after my last year of junior high--the summer of 1967 (Junior high in those days ended with 9th grade--now the freshman year of HS). I was still living in Darien CT; our family would move to CA in August of that year (1967), moving from up-tight and puritanical Connecticut to the SF Bay Area a few weeks after the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco. Culture shock would be an understatement. But the thing that provided the continuity for me was my beloved shot put. I had to change from the 8 lb to 12 lb shot between 9th and 10th grade, and so I began to throw the 12 lb in the summer of 1967. I would carry it with me 2/10 of a mile to Holmes School, the nearby elementary school, where I would set up my shot put "pit" behind the new wing of the school. Daily I would throw it 50 or 100 times. Custodians would take breaks and watch me, wondering what moved this curious but very serious 15 year-old. But I threw on, oblivious to their stares.

At the beginning of the summer, I was throwing it about 28 feet--not very spectacular, but my final heave, the day before we packed up and left for CA was 37'11''. I couldn't wait to get to CA, not to find out if CA girls were sexy, but to find the nearest shot put pit to my new home. I actually converted a section of our orchard in the back yard to a shot put pit. So, by the time the track season began in Feb. 1968, I was stoked, ready to throw that baby as far as I could. I was aided in my quest by the most remarkable book ever published, in my estimation. Plato Yanicks, the Menlo-Atherton HS track coach (I went to M-A from 1967 until my graduation in 1970), had compiled a book of all the records of in every event for every class of runners, jumpers, sprinters and throwers in school history. Thus, there was a "sophomore shot put record" category, and I saw that Larry Kennedy, a man who went on to win the NCAA discus championship in the early 1960s, held the sophomore shot put record at MA. It was 43' 7 1/2".

I didn't think it was possible that I would reach Larry's record (he came around M-A at times in those years and weighed in somewhere between 280 and 300 and could throw the discus out of sight), but I wanted to try. I began the season with a throw of about 39 feet--in a rainy meet at Lowell HS in San Francisco early in Feb. 1968. But then, just at the time of the of the "Hymie" episode of Get Smart, I participated in the Blossom Hill Relays (an invitational meet) at Leigh High School in San Jose. In the adrenaline rush of the competition (there must have been about 30 shot putters), I threw a 42'9'' toss. Though no one was excited, I was nearly apoplectic with joy. It was then that I knew I was going to accompish my goal. Indeed, I did, and by the end of the season I had put the shot 45' 10 1/2''.

Now I know why the March 2, 1968 Get Smart episode is, even today, fixed so firmly in my mind--it is because it was a time of personal efflorescence. Indeed, it is probably true that I felt in the Spring of 1968 the most continuous sense of measurable personal achievement at any time in my life until I began to write these mini-essays on my web site. It was a remarkably "up" time for me, one that I wanted to prolong for ever. But, of course, these times are evanescent; it "crashed" for me with a serious knee injury during football season in Fall 1968.

Conclusion

Yet, for one shining moment--in the Spring of 1968, the world seemed to swim along with me or, differently said, I seemed to be buoyed by the California warmth, by the ecstasy of a body quickly developing, of the reality of measurable achievement, by the love of accomplishment and (minimal, to be sure) recognition that it brought, by the sense that life could have a flow and meaning and deep comfort to it. That is why I remembered Hymie and Get Smart on this day in 2007. That is why I joyfully return to that wonderful Spring of 1968 in my mind; and that, finally, is why I think that in 2007 I can more maturely develop a reprise of 1968, one that might even last forever...

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