The Power of Memory

I remember thinking very clearly when I heard about it that Johnny Carson's passing was really a perfect example of a hallmark in time, a reminder of how different the world has become in just the short time since we saw him every day. He had only been off the air for about thirteen years, but it might as well have been a lifetime. It made me remember summer nights and Fridays on the couch, just letting the night melt away while my mom and I put the day to bed and finished it off with a nice relaxing mixture of comedy, interviews and escapism. It's the type of memory I guess we're all supposed to devalue now in this age where anything that happened earlier than yesterday is automatically dismissed as irrelevant nostalgia.

But I do not dismiss it, and not just because I am getting to that age where nearly everything old seems more attractive than everything new. There is a deeper, more powerful force at work here, and it is the force that transforms childhood, creates memories and in so doing, provides a template for a better future.

Mighty heady stuff for the old Tonight Show, you say? Well, maybe. But consider the largely ignored power of memory as it applies to this instance. Johnny Carson hosted "The Tonight Show" from 1962 to 1992, a time span that included some of the most volatile moments in American history. Vietnam, Watergate, the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Kent State, Watergate, the energy crisis, the Iran hostage crisis, the end of the cold war, the Gulf War. Through it all, no matter how bad our day went, Johnny was there at the end of it to metaphorically put us all to bed in a better mood, to make us think that tomorrow would be better. My personal memory of watching Johnny was mostly with my mom, as my dad had retired much earlier. It was a quiet time where Mom had a snack, or read quietly with Johnny on, and I laid sleepily on the couch and let the long, carefree day just kind of unwind into me. Johnny was smart, quick-witted, truly interested in his guests, and genuinely funny. It was like going to an oracle for truth at the close of an arduous journey; things would be OK, because Johnny made it feel like they would.

Is there anyone today that even remotely has the same effect on us? Letterman is probably the closest we have to Johnny in terms of sensibility and style, and yet even he seems remarkably self conscious and prickly compared to Carson. The rest, Leno, Conan et al, are really just copies of copy, unable to summon even a fraction of the style and grace that Johnny showed, choosing to emphasize their own personalities rather than let the comedy and the guests take center stage, as Johnny did. In doing so, they sacrifice that type of genuine connection and identification we all felt with Johnny.

So we are left with only nostalgia, drawing comfort only in the increasingly distant memory of how Johnny and his show made us feel. But is it truly "only" nostalgia? That is, does something that exists only in memory necessarily have less resonance than something that is occuring contemporaneously? Hardly. For me, the power of memory is that it reminds us (and empowers us) not just of how things were, but also of how they could be again, given sufficient effort. Johnny's hold on me is not just that he helped create some wonderful memories for me to draw upon, but also that he gave me an blueprint of how I would want my children to feel about the world at the end of a hard day; comforted, entertained, enlightened and always optimistic. The fact that he has been off the air for thirteen years, even the fact that he is now deceased, does not and cannot dim this ability.

Nor does this power, obviously, limit itself to "The Tonight Show". You could apply it to practically any show, any song, any cherished memory at all of a place you felt safe and protected. Far from being some sort of mental "recycle bin" where old irrelevant material just sits waiting to be permanently deleted, fond memories are in fact completely relevant source material upon which to draw to actualize one's own dreams. If a certain song made you feel happy, why not write a similar song that will make other people feel the same way? If a memory of a loving family that helped and supported each other is a positive part of your past, why not work toward creating the same type of environment in your own current family?

The past, no matter what is fashionable in contemporary thought, is not without purpose and importance. Through it our dreams and impressions of how reality can and should be are formed, and it is through the past that our future is effectively shaped. "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" may be long gone, but it's memory and the effect it had on all of us serves as strong evidence of the lasting power of all that we have experienced and all that we can dream.