In Praise of NameTags

I had a church committee meeting tonight where one of the items on the agenda was permanent Name Tags. We are a name tag wearing church which as I age I appreciate greatly. No one likes name tags more than my husband. If it were up to him people would have their names tattooed on their forehead since he is so tall that even if they have a name tag on he looks very awkward leaning far enough down to read it.
At my meeting tonight I told a very old story about Russ and his lack of knowing people’s names. After we had lived here for a good number of years we were invited to go to our friend’s Bill Lindsey and Jean Bethea’s lake house. We had a wonderful day with them swimming and eating and telling stories.
A few months later Russ came home from the grocery store and proudly announced to me that he had seen my friend Jean Bethea at the store and called her by name. This was big for him. first he actually noticed a person, and that he knew that person and knew her name– this was a red letter day! I told him I was so proud of him.
Five minutes later the phone rings. It was my friend Carol Shepard. “Russ just called me Jean Bethea at the grocery store.” So much for the celebration of Russ’ facial recognition skills.
If only we all were wearing name tags all the time these terrible mistakes could be avoided. I used to be able to remember everyone I ever met, where I met them, and who introduced us. Not anymore. I never say, “nice to meet you.” In case I have already met a person before and just don’t remember. “Nice to see you,” is the perfect noncommittal greeting. It does not mean I have or have not met you before. It also avoids my having to say someone’s name since I don’t remember that either.
I guess that Russ was just further along developmentally than me, but now that neither of us can remember anyone I don’t know what we are going to do. Maybe we will just have only old friends who are in our long term memory. Unless the whole world starts wearing name tags. Actually the way our eyesight is going perhaps they need to where license plate sized name tags so we can read their name without our glasses on. Or if everybody wore junior high school PE t-shirts that have their name written in sharpie right across the chest, that might work for us.

For the record after living here for over 20 years Russ does know the difference between Carol and Jean, at least this week.