The two memory corrections of the past few years that stand out should have been right in my wheelhouse: humorous anecdotes of college friends. The same person corrected me both times, but not because he recalled the incidents himself. He noticed an inaccurate fact going by and pointed it out. In one case, it was a story about grits at Frank's Truck Stop our freshman year. Sam suggested it was probably sophomore year, because none of us had a car freshman year, but Don had one sophomore year, and my roommate loved to go. The roommate had not been with our crowd freshman year. I saw at once that he was probably right. Similarly, I recalled Sam saying something humorous to Don at freshman orientation. Sam again corrected. "It was probably John Mahler, not Don. Freshman year he wasn't my roommate." You see what has happened. I thought that Don was the roommate, and so put him in as the straight man for the story. I couldn't actually have a true memory of that because it didn't happen. I created it - including visuals - from what I thought was the data. The data, not recall, had made the memory.
I will roll through my own information, likely of little interest to you, because of the types of memory filing they illustrate.
I remember things according to school year growing up, which is why I am sometimes fuzzy on which summer something happened, even with the additional clue of camp. Those run together. Activities outside of school, such as music or church may or may not be strongly associated with a school year, and thus better remembered. To a lesser extent, I remember things, especially social events or people, by what grade my sons were in, though much of work and church fell outside that. My wife seems to remember people differently, sometimes by where they live ("They are friends of the O'Brien's. They live on the same street.") or by other family members ("They have a daughter in third grade and a boy in preschool." Which, incidentally, helps me not at all, but she still says it earnestly, as if that will make things finally click for me.) When she describes people from church she thinks I should know she often recites an impressive amount of information that helps me not at all. Not my filing system. Though sometimes a town name will be a clue if it's not one of the main ones. Come to think of it, that was my filing system for kids from camp - "He was from Framingham," or at St Paul's Summer studies "He played soccer for White Mountain Regional."
With family, it is how they are connected to me. Pretty normal, I think, though I can imagine a person who has moved away and clumps various younger uncles, cousins, and second cousins together because they still live in that county. Events pretty much go with people, with only the largest independent news events standing on their own. Even travel events are as likely to key off the companions as the environment. (Actually, I am less certain about that upon reflection.) Any correction or revision of such information has to come along the same lines.
A: It had to be at Thanksgiving, not Christmas. Don't you remember I had that job where I could never get Christmas off?
B: Oh, right. But wait, you were back for Christmas the year that Gram died on the 23rd.
A: Right! You're right! The whole office was mad at me, like I'd engineered my grandmother's death in order to get Christmas off! So maybe it was that year you are remembering me at Christmas dinner.
B: But you were right when you said you'd never had to carry bags of presents up those stairs, because you had mailed them already. And you flew in instead of driving.
We had a foster daughter with us for 3-4 months in 1978-79. We were in touch a few times over the years, and only 6-7 years ago she expressed shock that she had only lived with us that short a time. "I thought I lived with you like three years. I remember so many nights of sitting in your lap and you reading to me." Talk about breaking our hearts that we didn't find a way to have her longer or have her back.
My second son was notoriously oblivious to what was happening in the house, yet is a one-man team on Trivia Nights. Information storage is independent of people for me as well. Entering into the world of equations, or Indo-European burials, or short stories by Borges is a separate world, subject to completely different filing systems.This, unfortunately, suggests an entirely separate discussion about expertise. I was hoping to be done with this topic this morning and moving on to one I like better. Sigh. I'll scratch in a note for the new one, as a placeholder. Which come to think of it, is another memory topic. Sighx2. Coming Attractions.
A friend who gets called in at work to put oil on the troubled waters of squabbles tells me that a lot seems to be solved right out of the gate by reminding everyone of the early facts, including the chronology, of what seems to have caused the dispute. I don't think this is a mere tactic to shut up the difficult and stupid people - though I imagine it is useful for that - but it fits how memory works for all of us. It is a gentle corrective to ways that our memory was already going wrong. Okay, you hadn't received official word that the project was being discontinued, no. But you knew it was being considered. You knew some people had been transferred already. Because that is exactly the sort of thing resentful people cling to later, and come to exaggerate: "Completely out of the blue. None of us saw it coming." But as the discussion is being set up it is good to remind people of what they already know, without any attempt to correct anyone. It at least keeps us from ratcheting up, and maybe even sets us on our heels a bit. (Whoa. Glad I didn't bring up that thing about the Poughkeepsie office. It's likely important in things like a military report as well, when there is fog of war and plenty of rumor and emotionalised memory everywhere. "Just the facts, ma'am."
We will follow the narrative, not the facts, unless forced to.
We will follow the narrative, not the facts, unless forced to.
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