It's So Trivial

I was listening to the radio the other day, and a commercial came on. The male voice in the commercial was very distinctive, and I wondered to myself if he sounds like that all the time. I also wondered if I would recognize his voice if I heard it in a random setting.

While looking for articles on sound and memory, a cursory glance told me that we don't retain information we hear nearly as well as information we see. I'm not talking about information, though. I'm talking about the sound of a voice, not necessarily what the voice was saying.

Basically, our senses create memories that are either in our long-term or short-term memories. It's been my experience that sound is instant and intense in its ability to transport me to a time and/or place. I hear a certain song and instantly remember where I was, who was with me, and what I was doing.

A couple of years ago I took an ambulance ride because of severe spasms in my back. The spasms were so intense that with each spasm, my legs would involuntarily pull up and I was in a fetal position. Anyway, I had to go for physical therapy (after I was able to walk).

At PT, I heard a voice. A familiar voice. I knew that voice. I looked around to see whose voice it was, and it was a DJ from a local radio station. I don't listen to that station regularly anymore, but I'd been listening to him since I was in high school. I didn't know how deep in my memory his voice was until I heard him.

I digress, because I was really talking about the male announcer in the commercial, and how his voice jarred a memory.

Before the internet made information accessible in the blink of an eye, I co-hosted a call-in trivia show on a local college radio station. It was a weekly show, and it may have been an hour long. I'm not quite sure anymore.

My friend was a cashier at a grocery store (I know this seems completely unrelated to the previous paragraph, but it's not). I was there to get her from work so we could go out. As I'm chatting with her, a guy approaches me and says, “You're Lauren Haulass”!

Lauren Haulass was the name my co-hosts gave me at the radio station; the name I used on the air.

I froze for a few seconds. My mind was volleying questions and answers to itself.

He said that he listened to the show every week, and he would have recognized my voice anywhere. It was kind of cool, but I felt very weird. This was back in the day where radio and television were two decidedly separate media outlets. Radio afforded you anonymity. Only to a degree, though, as I discovered that night in a grocery store.