"60 Minutes" Interview On Superior Autobiographical Memory To Air Sunday, January 12

Re: "60 Minutes" Interview On Superior Autobiographical Memory To Air Sunday, January

I didn't want to start a new thread but I got an email from Shari Finklestein, the producer of "60 Minutes." They're doing a feature tomorrow night on sports fan Bob Petrella. Bob is a Steelers fan who has the same mental illness I do (HSAM). He was featured on the 12/19/10 original airing of HSAM.

This has something to do with a fantasy basketball team. I have no idea about it otherwise. We were told that while previous clips from the show will be airing, none of us from the 2014 follow-up is in it. Don't know if anyone cares but anyway.

Re: "60 Minutes" Interview On Superior Autobiographical Memory To Air Sunday, January

FYI - I have an interview with The History Channel this afternoon (via Skype). They're thinking of doing a nostalgia show featuring us "memory wizards" and what we recall and our different perspectives on things in the past (like say I was 11 when Reagan was shot - what I recall and how I viewed it compared to say a 30-year old).

I'll keep you posted.

Re: "60 Minutes" Interview On Superior Autobiographical Memory To Air Sunday, January

I got a phone call today from the producer of the new program on "The History Channel" setting up a Skype interview next week. We're still in the dark about this, but it appears to be one of those shows where, for example, they do a retrospective on the Reagan assassination.

And at some point I come on and say:

"It was Monday, March 30, 1981. It was an overcast day. I was in my seventh period class, which was our P.E. We were throwing a football out on the playground when the classroom monitor came screaming that we all had to come back to the classroom. When we got there, we sat down and they had CBS on. Rather had just replaced Cronkite a few weeks earlier (shows clip of Cronkite's final words). We sat in stunned silence. Now you have to remember - when Reagan was elected in 1980, every President since 1840 that had been elected in a year ending in "0" had died in office, so we were well aware of this. I got home and my parents were watching it and the part I'll never forget is they reported that Press Secretary James Brady had died (show clip of announcement) and then came back later and retracted it (shows clip). Later that night, Indiana beat North Carolina, 63-50, to win the NCAA basketball title (shows final score) and Isaiah Thomas was the star player (shows his stats). But they really hid from us the imminent danger Reagan was actually in, and we never knew it at the time (shows clip of Mike Deaver saying years later how they had misled the press)."


I haven't done any of that - it's just that what it appears to be.

Funny story: I set the "60 Minutes" producers laughing when I talked to them on the phone in October 2013. They asked me to share a story about Lesley Stahl. I told them on October 21, 1989, I was watching the Alabama-Tennessee game and a shootout was unfolding (we won, 47-30). All of a sudden, Stahl interrupts my football game!!!!! She comes on and says that they've found a survivor named Buck Helm in the rubble of the Loma Prieta earthquake. I tell her I'm cussing Stahl on the TV screen and they're in stitches on the phone laughing.

They did not, however, let me tell that one to Stahl when we were interviewed.