My son is now in college, but when he was in high school and he complained about having to write papers, I would give him a stiff dose of "Bah. When I was your age, there were no word processors. We bought "White Out" correction fluid by the 55 gallon drum. We didn't have the internet either." I was the last group of folks to go through undergrad before the information age really got going on the desktop.

Three years after I graduated, my newlywed husband George and I had a brand new 128K Macintosh. Today, many hundred times that amount of memory fits on a cheap flashdrive. By the time I got to grad school, my old Smith Corona typewriter was in the attic. "WWW" had been born and was growing by the day.  

Now, as I am in the last gasp of my 40s, I am so grateful that I will be able to age with Google. The appearance of cognitive changes as one ages is a fact of life. The best way to adjust to them is to try to have a sense of humor about one's lapses in memory. Of course organic brain disease, such as dementia, is no laughing matter, and severe shifts in cognitive capacity should be checked out. (More information at the end of this article.)

I am at the "missing word" stage now. According to most of my agemates, when we compare notes (and when I remember their names), they are going through the same thing. When this started to happen a couple years ago, I got worried. Then I read somewhere, "if you place your keys in the fridge once while unloading groceries, it's normal absentmindedness. If you forget what keys are for-then it's time to go to the doctor.

George, who is seven years older than I, has been coping with this for a while longer. It's so frustrating. But thank God we have each other to fill in the blanks-and we will both have Google. 

A good example of this mental Swiss Cheese occurred a few months ago when George and I were driving in the car. We were reminiscing about Boomer music, and the Rolling Stones came up. One of us mentioned Mick Jagger. Then I asked, "What was the name of his first wife?" Dead silence. I could see her face in my mind's eye. I remembered that she was a beautiful Nicaraguan and active in humanitarian and social justice pursuits. But we were completely stumped. We sat there, befuddled, and just laughed and laughed at our inability to pull up a name. I remembered that her name was an unusual one. Then George remembered it started with a "B." About 10 seconds later he said, "I know! It's Binaca!"  I reminded him that Binaca was a spray for bad breath, but that was enough of a hint so I could retrieve it-"It's Bianca!" 

We laughed.  And then I sang a familiar line from a Stones' lyric: What a Drag it is Getting Old.

We were in the car, without internet access, so it took two brains with three college degrees and four tries to pull up a piece of trivia that any Baby Boomer has known for over 30 years. This type of thing is happening a couple times a week now. At home, we could go to Google and find it in two seconds. The other day, I was trying to remember the name of the female lead in From Here to Eternity.  I could see her lovely face and her pretty blonde hair. I could envision her and Burt Lancaster in the famous beach scene.  I could even see her in another film dancing with Yul Brynner in The King and I. But there I was-slackjawed and speechless.  Of course, one click of Google, and I had her-Deborah Kerr.

Genny Xers?  You're next. Here's how you will know you're moving into this phase: the memory changes that come with aging are like having to move from Fill in the Blank queries to Multiple Choice exams to order to ace the tests. I couldn't come up with Deborah's name, but if I had a list to choose from of blondes from that era: Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, Shirley Jones or Deborah Kerr, I would know instantly.

So as long as this is happening anyway, I might as well count my three blessings:

1) I love aging in many ways. The "tip of the tongue" trouble aside, information recall is a bit slower, but I have more wisdom every year. You can't Google-up good judgment or life experience.

2) I also have an auxiliary brain in the form of a life partner who's growing old with me. Most of the time, between the two of us, what one of us can't recall, the other usually can.

3) But on those occasions when a computer is nearby, I am intensely grateful that I am in the lucky cohort that is growing old with an amazing search engine that can help me turn a few wisps of key words into instant memory.

Now. As long as I never forget the name of that search engine, I'll be OK. Let's see. Boggle? Drupal? Tweeter?  Oh oh. GEORGE, help!

 Note: the genre of my creative writing is frequently humor. Changes in cognitive health, however, is a very serious subject. The Alzheimer's Association webpage has a list of 10 symptoms of dementia onset and does a good job of differentiating between the typical memory changes that I wrote about vs. those that indicate the need for an evaluation. Check them out at: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_10_signs_of_alzheimers.asp