I am astonished, I think that’s the right word, every day by the depth and breadth of my ignorance. There is a lot I don’t know and never will. I don’t understand essential oils, for example, or lipogenesis. I could go on.

None of this bothers me, because I survived a pandemic, baby. My mom texted me once I left her house in Arizona, just a few hours later, to tell me that even after we scoured her small house for stray items, I left a facemask draped over a towel rack.

“I’m sure Bill has one you can borrow,” she said, worried, unaware that I packed three facemasks, or that I probably wouldn’t have to rely on my brother at any rate, since they’re everywhere.

“Keep it as a memento,” I said. Which I shouldn’t have, now that I think of it. Mom’s got a bit of a scrapbooking problem.

But I do worry about what I don’t know, because I also worry that I’m the last defense against lost memories. Not me personally, but people my age. Every cohort remembers certain things from early on, events and cultural totems, and at some point nobody younger does.

And there’s really no merit system, no rhyme or reason. We still remember Mark Twain and Will Rogers, although not really Wilson Mizner, a wit to challenge both of those (or Artemis Ward, earlier on). We can only handle a certain number of humorists, maybe.

But there’s more. What about Alexander Parkes, who demonstrated his creation, organic material derived from cellulose, which he proudly presented at the Great International Exposition in London in 1862.

1862! The heat of the American Civil War. The year of Shiloh, the sacking of McClellan, the invention of the Gatling gun. We had a conniving Europe trying to play both sides, and death and destruction on our homeland, and Alexander Parkes got some attention but historically short shrift, and all he did was invent plastic.

OK. Maybe we don’t need to remember Alexander Parkes, or even Philo Farnsworth, who, INCIDENTALLY, invented television.

It’s just that I get older and closer to the last parts of my life, I’m acutely aware of the people and things that will disappear with me, like those little flakes of existence during the Blip in Avengers: Infinity Stones. I feel good about Mark Twain outliving me. I worry I’m taking Mickey Dolenz and Horshack to my grave.

And this is all because I’ve been reading Mark Harris’ biography of Mike Nichols, and even though I’ve always been a fan my awareness has been shallow and easily forgotten. I could make the case that Nichols and Elaine May invented modern American comedy, a solid case, and that was when they were in their 20s. Then Nichols went on to direct his first play, on Broadway, transforming a classic broad comedy by a struggling playwright, a former comedy writer for Sid Caesar, into “Barefoot In The Part,” Neil Simon’s first hit, followed by directing his second, little thing called “The Odd Couple.”

Then he went to Hollywood and directed “Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate” and he was in his early 30s, and I have reassessed by appreciation for Orson Welles now.

On top of that, Elaine May is well known as the script doctor’s script doctor. Her fingerprints are over a ton of classic, award-winning movies of the past 50 years, although you’d never know it (maybe with Tootsie, which has a lot of stories). She preferred a paycheck to a credit, and she did just fine.

Anyway, their entire careers spanned my lifetime, and I should have known more, and now who will remember? History books. YouTube. It’s not sad, just notable, and now I feel compelled to remember as many little tiny, trivial details as I can. Maybe just to amuse my grandson, maybe just to feel older and wiser and having lived through interesting times, although Mickey Dolenz was a very small part to be honest.