remembering names

[Michael Boo]

It's not just a getting older thing. I've never been good with names. I'll see people every year at corps shows and have no idea who they are. When they greet me by name, I respond with something like, "Hey, great to see you. How have you been?" And that usually buys me some time...and hopefully they don't come back with, "My entire family was killed in an avalanche in January and last week my dog was run over by a beer truck."

[rayfallon]

It's not just a getting older thing.

Although the getting older thing doesn't help much...

[rayfallon]

I am Rain Man with names - well - about 90% of them. It also helped that I wrote down the name of every member for my first year in the corps - and then I remembered who continued. It also helped that a few of the members produced corps yearbooks which I still. I guess my good memory along with having loads of memorabilia helps.

If I see a photo - I can usually remember the name.

I referred to one of the trombone players in the band I was teaching by name... she was first chair tuba for CT and a fabulous player. Unbelievable kid - you would have paid to be her parents. Her name was Mimi.

One of the clarinet players got very exercised that I had remembered Mimi's name.

She started breaking my ##### from her seat in the band room... "how come you can't remember everyone's name? What is she, special?"

As calmly as I could I said, "I'm really genuinely sorry I'm so bad with names. I've been teaching for over 20 years (this was 20 years ago) and I've worked with literally thousands of students. At this point in my life I can only remember the names of the really supermotivated players who power the program, or the total dead weight that hold it back... but I do remember your name Janet."

After a split second of the deadest silence the kids did what kids do best, very loudly, and it was a dead issue going forward.

One of the names above was changed to protect the ... errrr.... innocent?