The years keep passing and memories become more and more faded

"Roger: I hope 1944 turns out well. They pass so quickly. Where do they all go?
"Biff Baxter: So quickly. Then we get old. And we never knew what any of it was about."
-- WOODY ALLEN, Radio Days

Everybody's got their memories, and as they grow older, memories fill more and more of the space in their brain devoted to remembrance.

I loved hearing my late grandfather tell me stories about seeing baseball players like Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie and others. He owned a bat that he said had belonged to Lajoie, a bat that was bigger, longer and heavier than any bat I had ever seen.

My grandparents and my mother.

I loved his story about his strict father, who had emigrated from Germany in the late 19th century, and the Sunday dinner when his brother learned a lesson. The entire family, a dozen or so of them, were seated around the dining room table. My great-uncle, who I never met, complained that his plate was cracked. My great-grandfather came around the table, grabbed him and threw him through the open window into the yard.

A minute or two later, he threw a suitcase after him and said, "If you ever complain about your mother again, you can leave and never come back."

Talk about your tough love.

These days that would probably be called child abuse, but I'll be willing to bet one thing. I doubt that kids raised that way went out and killed people because they were bored.

On the whole, we weren't a generation that was all that interested in the past. People have accused baby boomers of acting as if the world started on the day we were born. I don't think that's completely true, but I know that my millennial son asked my dad more about his experience in World War II than I ever did.

Virgile had a report due in school. He asked, and was told.

I never asked. In fact, I'm not sure I ever asked any of my relatives about their lives in the years before I was born.

It took me a long time in life to understand that when you find other people's stories interesting, you're showing a certain regard for their humanity. And no matter how much you think you know, there will always be people who know more than you about something.

Interviewing Chris Evert in 1981.

Being a reporter helped. Especially when I was doing feature stories or columns about someone, I saw fairly quickly that the more I talked, the less they talked. And vice versa. I learned that short questions are more likely to yield long answers, and that waiting in silence when the answer is seemingly done can often result in even more information and better quotes.

There are so many great memories I ought to have, stories I wrote 30 years ago and didn't save.

I always thought there would be better ones, and there were, but I no longer remember the details of interviewing Chris Evert in 1981 or sitting and talking for an hour with Roger Maris in 1982.

I spent hours drinking vodka with Roger Kahn in 1983 and an entire evening watching baseball with Hank Aaron in 1984. I wrote stories every time and I no longer have any of them.

I do still have memories, a lot of them, but more of them are about my wife, children and grandchildren. The '80s are more of a blur to me now.

They pass so quickly.

Then we get old.

And we never know what any of it was about.