I'm no different than most of you apparently, judging from these posts.
I can remember my address, phone number, all that from the childhood home I grew up in
(50 years since last set foot in it) - all the way down to individual cracks in the sidewalks
between it and the school we walked to each day.
I remember addresses and phone numbers of each place I've ever lived, in fact.
I don't think there's much special in that...
Vehicles? I remember every single one the family had and of course all I've owned - but
not so much serial numbers and such, but more like individual characteristics of each...
You let me snoop around an old car for a few minutes and I don't care what the numbers were,
I can tell you if it was one of mine pretty quick just from the individual quirks of each.
Again, I don't know if there's much special about that ability either.
I think it boils down to simpler lives in earlier years, so there's not as much competition for
available memory cells in the brain - along with a younger, more nimble brain to begin with.
As life gets on, more stuff is jammed in the noggin and it starts to get crowded in there...
Add a dose of slowing from aging, more complications in life, more competition for remaining
brain cells as our world becomes ever faster and more electronics-"aided" just to function in...
and next thing you know, the nostalgia of simpler times is not only an emotional one, but a REAL
one, based in reality.
I think it's entirely possible we're in a world now that wears out mental capacities faster than ever.
Wouldn't surprise me if senility, Parkinson's, all those old age mental exhaustion maladies aren't more
prevalent than ever now vs. times past, honestly.