Joe Biden, being or getting old, is or is getting less filtered. Part of this is an involuntary loss of control, and part of this is a voluntary forfeit of it. Also, being an American politician, Joe Biden has no great tradition of public speaking to uphold. He certainly couldn't if there was one. But he is not demented, as much as people might insist he is. He may be close, but wishing won't make it so.

Here is what dementia is. After my old friend fell and broke her hip, and I found her on the floor and called an ambulance, and she had surgery and was placed in rehab, she asked me: "John, why am I here?" I told her. She exclaimed: "Goodness!" Then, after a few minutes: "John, why am I here?" And we went through it again. And again.

That's dementia.

A week before she fell, we were talking, and she forgot who I was. But she didn't ask who I was. She thought I was someone else, though she didn't say who. She waved away my claims that I was me, though she was pleased that I knew me. "Oh, you know John!"

That's dementia.

As creepy as this interlude was, I was not totally unprepared for it. Years earlier, my father had done the same thing with my mother. He was no longer sure where his wife was, but he was pleased that this woman in his house was so like her. This really distressed Mom.

Another thing that distressed Mom was waking up one night when the bedside telephone rang. Dad would normally have answered it, but he wasn't there. Mom picked up the receiver. Someone said, "Mrs. H? You don't know me, but..." Dad had got up, got out, and wandered, pretty far down a country road, and knocked on someone's door. At least he was able to state his name.

I urged Mom to find a psychiatrist in the Yellow Pages, and this she did. I was there for the appointment. It was by no means clear to me what was wrong with Dad, but it was to the psychiatrist. I had had the idea that a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease can only be made at autopsy. That may be true of that particular disease, but other sorts of dementia can be more readily assessed. Without ado, the guy posed simple challenges. And Dad was either totally mystified, answered them confidently but incorrectly, or started out well and then fell silent. Things like "Where are you?" and "Starting at 100, count backwards by threes." Dad got to 94 on that one, then halted. He didn't flounder; he just ran out of mental energy for that task.

The test results were so stark. My guess is that Joe Biden would give far better ones.

I'd driven from Texas over to South Carolina, a two-day trip I'd often made. Before the second leg of this one, I had a Sunday morning run through the Mississippi State campus. It was July and already hot. Among this college's ambiguous monuments, I slowed to a jog and let the sun bake in. Bad times were coming, and this was training for a great trial. It would last over three years, and be worse for my mother. I had to toughen myself. It doesn't prove anything, but nobody around Joe Biden is doing that.

(8/18/21)