MY MEMORY PROJECT

It's good for my memory to practice memorizing. Let me explain. As I mentioned in my last blog or the one before, I live in a retirement community. This year on March 31 we staged The Follies. Residents volunteered to take part. Some sang, some recited, some acted out a scene from The Pink Panther. I chose to do a one woman show. Me!

I used Bob Newhart's wonderful phone call with Sir Walter Raleigh when he returned from America with tobacco as a guide to my sketch. I am alone on stage telephoning my fictional sister, Helen. She is a widow, 63 years old, living alone on the farm. As we talk I realize she has been charmed by a young man into allowing him to grow a crop behind the barn. It's marijuna, of course. Because I had memorized the script the phone call went over very well. One woman said to me later. "It was like a real phone call."

Another memory jolt. To-day we had the once-a-month Current Affairs discussion and I chose to focus on the problems with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I have read Exra Levant's book, Shake Down and his experience in being hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission because he dared to publish the Danish cartoons featuring Mohammed in Levant's news magazine, Western Report. A local imam took exception to the cartoons and asked the Calgary police to charge Levant for publishing the cartoons. They refused, of course.

So he laid a charge against Mr. Levant in 2006. Mr. Levant was asked by a Ms. McGovern to explain his intent and purpuse in publishing the cartoons. What a question! The thought police were at work. The case dragged on for two years but the AHRC had taken a tiger by the tail when Mr. Levant refused to back down. Read the book. What's happening in Canada is downright scary.

Enough already. Taking part in exercises is good for the brain. Walking by the sea is good for the brain. A glass of wine before dinner and a glass with dinner are even better for the brain. Memorize some poetry and dazzle your friends with a few lines from Hamlet's soliloquy.

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Anita Birt
www.anitabirt.com