People come, and people go. It happens all the time.
As it so happens, this is the date, December 14, 1993, when Myrna Loy went.
Who? Some might ask.
Well, I’ll tell you. Myrna Loy was an American actress born on August 2, 1905, in Helena, Montana, of all places. She was a beauty and was best known for her work in classic Hollywood cinema during the 1930s and 1940s.
I used to love to watch her in “The Thin Man” series, which was filmed many times between 1934 and 1947. Loy played the role of “Nora Charles” opposite William Powell’s “Nick Charles.” It was a campy detective-comedy film series. The two of them, Loy and Powell, had a great chemistry that really poured through on screen. And the big star was their cutie dog, named Asta. He was a Wire Fox Terrier and oh so smart. His real name, the dog actor, was Skippy.
Anyway, she appeared in a lot of other movies, like “The Great Ziegfeld” in 1936. Loy played the role of Billie Burke, the wife of the famous showman Florenz Ziegfeld. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Loy’s performance truly contributed to its success.
But here is the thing. Every time I hear something about Myrna Loy, I think of Lorna Doone cookies. I have no idea why. The names are not really similar, except for the “L” in Loy and Lorna.
For those who don’t know, Lorna Doone is a brand of shortbread cookies. I think, overall, they’ve been pretty popular in the United States. They have a very distinctive little flat, rectangular shape with scalloped edges. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had one, but as I recall, they are kind of buttery.
As far as I know, these cookies have nothing to do with Myrna Loy. They are named after the fictional character Lorna Doone from the 1869 novel “Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor” by R.D. Blackmore. It takes place in England. The cookies were likely named to create a nostalgic “English” brand image for the product. But as far as the specific individual who made this naming decision? I couldn’t find any information on who decided that.
But, with this and so many other things, one memory triggers another for me. Every time.
We know this best as “memory association” or “memory chaining.” Apparently, it is a common occurrence in human memory. The scientists say this phenomenon is closely related to how our brains organize and store information. They also say that in the brain, memories are stored in a network of interconnected neurons. When one memory is activated, it can spread activation to nearby neurons, making related memories easier to retrieve.
So. I guess somewhere deep in my brain, the memory of Myrna Loy is in the filing cabinet right next to Lorna Doone’s cookies. But it must not be anywhere near chocolate chip cookies, or even Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies, because I never think of them when I think of good old Myrna Loy.
Our memory systems are amazing, but they are pretty funny too, if you ask me.
Memory is a truly complex system with different types of memory. A few of these “types” include sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Our memories have many different functions built into our “systems” in order to do the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. File this here. Get that over there. Put beach balls next to The Count of Monte Cristo. And so on.
But as we all know, our memories are fallible. It is susceptible to errors, distortions, and false memories. There are times when we think we have it right in our heads, but we might be remembering events inaccurately. Or, in some cases, having vivid memories of events that never happened.
There is also plain old “forgetting.” Forgetting is a normal and essential aspect of memory. It helps us filter out irrelevant information and retain what is important. Our brains pick and choose, it seems. Not everything we experience is stored in long-term memory. I think that is why we don’t remember every single day of our 8th grade school year, and such.
But the bottom line is that our memory is incredible. It is hard to quantify the actual capacity, but the human brain can store vast amounts of information.
I read quite about about memory for this piece. Yet. Even after all of that, I don’t know why, in my mind, Myrna Loy seems like a package of Lorna Doone Cookies with the yellow checkered bag and the green print.
And that’s the way the cookie crumbles, my friends.
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“The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you.” – Rodman Philbrick
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“The beauty of memories is that they are yours; whether they are good, bad, or indifferent, they belong to you, and they are forever.” – Alan Maiccon
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“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.” – Oscar Wilde
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Are you some sort of cookie, Myrna?
