By Nan Peacocke
For Coastal Senior

Keys. It rhymes with freeze (among other words) and I'm told that's where you should store them if you have trouble remembering where yours keys are.

Conventional wisdom as currently parceled out in self-help programs recommends you put your keys in an easily accessible spot in your food freezer the instant you arrive home. I suppose any regular spot would do but the freezer is such a ridiculously inappropriate spot that you aren't likely to forget it.

The subject of keys often comes up when a sister and I eat out. We're both seniors although I personally prefer the term elders, but that's a whole other subject. We sometimes have trouble keeping up with who has which keys when we part.

Keys are such an essential that they've been at the center of many memorable moments of life. And their care and coveting is also one bright spot in the slowly escalating frequency of "senior moments" (memory lapses) in my life. It has taken my entire pre-Social Security life, but I can and do keep up with my keys now much better than in my distant youth. It is one of the many ways we get better with age.

The beginning of my problem was that in my childhood, to my knowledge, nobody had a key to our house. Nobody needed one because there were nine people in our household - plus assorted visiting kin.

If you got privacy at all it was miraculous. To ever have a time when there was no one at all at home was a sign of such a disaster that the prospect of a burglar was minor in comparison. In normal times if our door was locked it meant some family member was probably locked out maybe because of genetic defect, disorganization, choice or intelligence level - my family was never able to keep up with keys.

Still, we weren't burglarized purely because no self-respecting burglar could hang around long enough to find the house empty and door locked so he could break in.

My youngest older brother, once grown, found himself the neighborhood trustee. Because he worked at home and was a large, honest person, everyone left their house key with him. Soon the situation became ridiculous and he had more keys than he (with his own increasing "senior moments") could hope to keep up with. He always protested but neighbors kept pushing their house keys on him for safekeeping, in case they found themselves locked out, or the carpet cleaners needed to get in while they were at work.

It only ceased when he took all those keys and dumped them in a huge, gallon-sized pickle jar. The identifying marks were removed so any neighbor with a felonious tendency wasn't tempted to take someone else's key. When people came to get their key for some "emergency" or add theirs to his pile of responsibilities, he handed them the jar. It didn't take long for the jar to lighten considerably.

In my own younger adulthood my key responsibilities were nil. Anytime I locked anything I was locked out. I had a slogan, "the only people inconvenienced by keys are law abiding citizens." Burglars don't let keys hinder their entry. My theory was strengthened by my sister who lived near a high school and had her house burglarized so many times it was referred to as the School Stop and Shop.

I lived in a quiet northeast Atlanta suburb for 15 years. Once I recall I had a brief moment of paranoia and locked my house. Of course, I don't remember if I then promptly lost the key or had locked it inside. All I do remember is it took a brick to knock out a front window to get back in. And I never took the keys out of my car. Yes, ATLANTA and yes....NEVER! And I never had my car stolen. I moved from Atlanta and had my car stolen within a month....with the keys in it, of course. And what followed was a riotous recovery by my brother and I that is again, another story. But that was pre-drug era Atlanta.

I have lost or misplaced keys everywhere. The people at Bradley's and Volpin's know me well from the days when I only visited Savannah. Recently, a set of car keys lost among the ferns and Spanish moss growing at the place of my now deceased mother's Savannah residence was recovered from 1973. I had asked my son to throw me the car keys. He did. The tree stood between us and when he made the 70-foot toss they landed on the Live Oak's limb.

Yes, we got ladders and, yes, we climbed the tree but another trip to the locksmith was inevitable. There were many people who, as a form of greeting, would say, "There's Nan. Anybody want to play where're the keys?"

So can you imagine if handling of keys got worse with age? With age, I handle keys beautifully so there's hope for you, too. Here are some things I've found that work for me:

Keep all keys, certainly those used daily, on one ring, particularly your house and car keys. If you keep things locked as we all should these days, if you're in the house so are your keys. If you're in the car, so are your keys.

Bracelets work well as a key ring because you get accustomed to the bracelet and immediately miss its presence. The two most common types of bracelet key rings are the solid metal ones that once came with an attached whistle you were supposed to blow in case of trouble. I've long since lost the whistle to some child relative but I still have the bracelet part after 20 years. The other bracelet type is a plastic coil. The most important thing is to keep the bracelet on whenever you leave the house so that you become accustomed to its presence. After that, you can remove the ring while inside and work on the next suggestion.

Have one place and only one place where you put your keys when you come in the house. The freezer thing works well for me.

And that brings me to my final suggestion:

Don't just keep assorted, meaningless keys on the ring. Know each key you have and what it unlocks. If you don't know and are unable to find out by asking trusted friends and relatives, remove it from the ring and put it in a safe spot (your freezer or other keys-only spot) but don't throw it away. You may yet find out what it fits. The practice of checking every one of your keys and privately repeating what each unlocks is an excellent mental exercise.

Nan Peacocke is a freelance writer who lives in Savannah.