“When the likable chap at the PTA meeting first
introduced himself in 1994, you did not realize that you would keep bumping
into him for the next 27 years. So you didn't commit his name to memory. Also,
there was a lot of noise in the room that day. And you'd just had a root canal.
As the years passed, it only became more embarrassing to say, ‘I'm sorry, but
I'm not sure I ever caught your name.’”—Columnist Joe Queenan, “The Rising
Shame of Not Knowing a Name,”
The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 11-12, 2021
No wonder that more than a few of us baby boomers
would support Queenan’s proposal for a National Amnesty Day, “where it is
permissible to go out and ask people their names, without fear or
embarrassment, even if you have known
the person in question since the Pirates won the World Series.”
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