My Alzheimer's Journey

Part 177 - August 7, 2026

Linda and I are struggling to find motivation to pack for our upcoming move. There are 24 days until move day.

I know the smart packing method involves tackling small areas for short periods of time. We downsized substantially when we moved to Chapel Hill last October, so there isn’t a tremendous amount of stuff to pack. It feels overwhelming, though.

If only I could teach the cats to pack boxes. All they want to do is destroy the packing paper.

While trying to muster motivation, I remembered when my dad and I owned a moving support services company. I can’t remember the exact years we operated the business, but it was about 45 years ago.

At the time, Dad was a Jartran rental truck dealer.

Jartran Truck Rental no longer exists. James A. Ryder started the company in 1978 to rival U-Haul and Ryder, but high-interest rates and heavy debts caused it to go bankrupt and shut down completely in the mid-1980s. I found this television commercial from 1983.

I came up with the idea for a company to provide packing, loading, driving, unloading, etc. We did not need an interstate commerce license since the truck rental contract was not in our name. The person or family moving rented the truck and hired us for labor.

The company name was Budget Moving Services. Operating the company wasn’t particularly hard. Yet, there were many adventures and interesting experiences. It was a true family business. My mother and sisters were often helping with the packing.

One of my favorite stories involved a move to Los Angeles. My parents offered to drive the small rental truck so they could sightsee along the way from South Carolina. I hired a local crew to unload the truck in Los Angeles. The apartment building in Los Angeles had an overhead walkway that you drove under to reach the parking lot. The rental truck barely cleared the walkway. After the truck was unloaded, it no longer fit under the walkway. Dad called and told me he had reduced the air pressure in the tires, but the truck was still too tall. They were panicking because they had a flight home in a few hours. The solution was to completely flatten the tires and have a tow truck winch the rental truck under the walkway. As I recall, we lost money on that move.

It is interesting how I remember experiences from decades ago with great detail, yet I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night.

Alzheimer’s disease attacks the hippocampus and temporal lobes first. The hippocampus acts like a save button for new experiences. When Alzheimer’s harms this area, new data cannot convert into saved memories. Older long-term memories are already deeply stored across the wider cerebral cortex through repeated neural connections. They survive the initial Alzheimer’s damage and remain accessible longer.

Memories from my childhood or decades ago are deeply ingrained. They rely on widespread networks in the outer brain layer rather than the failing hippocampus. Someone told me memories use a first-in, last-out filing system.

I assume if you live long enough, the older memories will begin to fade.

I best go pack a few boxes - or, put it off until tomorrow.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

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