Les Guys de Versailles: Adventures in Selective Memory

Dave Barry, one of my heroes (alongside Jim Henson, the Moomins, and Colin Mochrie), once wrote a column in which he stated that the average person of his generation would be unable to name any Supreme Court justices, but would remember in perfect detail the theme song to the TV show Robin Hood.  


My sister, reading this column aloud, had scarcely gotten to the next sentence when our father (who is of Dave Barry's generation) exclaimed: "Hey! I watched that show!" With no further prompting, he launched right into a jolly rendition of the theme-song, complete with rolled r's and delivery straight from Sadler's Wells. Word-perfect, naturally.


When he was finished, my sister remarked: "Yes, that's right." She had been following the lyrics as Dave Barry had typed them on the page (I assume he did this without having to go back to check anything).


This fits with something I've observed about human memory myself.  It's not just our formative years that stay with us the most strongly.  It's what we watched on TV in our formative years.  And, if you ask me, it's what we watched on Saturday mornings in particular.  Has anybody else noticed this? We remember our morning cartoons in extraordinarily vivid detail.  I do not have the faintest memory of what the trichotomy axiom is,* but I can remember, with photographic precision, any number of individual mornings in 1999, getting up in the wee dark hours with my sister to watch episodes of Pokémon and Sailor Moon.**


And so I say to those of you in MY generation - excepting those of you who spent the year 1999 being Amish - that if you do not remember this, you are lying:

My sister is younger, so thanks to her this was my second go at the whole morning cartoon experience.  As it happens, I myself already had my own stash of useless but incredibly vivid TV-memories from when I was a wee Snark.  The problem is, when you carry these memories around long enough, you start to doubt their accuracy. Case in point: I went around for years convinced I had fabricated a commercial I "saw" as a toddler.  The commercial, for Dreft detergent, featured a female narrator speaking in the softest yet most reptilian voice imaginable about DREFFFFFT: FOR A CLEEEEAN YOU CAN TOUCCCCHHHHH.  This commercial dominated my brain for literally years, replacing recollections of things like upcoming doctor's appointments, drowning out most of college,*** until finally I ran across a video of it last year.  It did exist! See?

Okay, so that lady's voice isn't QUITE as creeptastic as I remember.  I mean, I honestly recalled her speaking Parseltongue.  But whatever! I didn't make it up! Score!****


Obviously, stuff like this takes up critical brain space.  But the question remains: what is it replacing? At least, what is it replacing of use? Because I know that, even without the palliative of morning cartoons, I wasn't about to go around thinking of the trichotomy axiom, and neither were you, stupid.  So morning-cartoon memory syndrome might have an evolutionary function, but it's not to block out math.  Something else would have stepped in to serve that purpose.  


So it's not math, and it isn't history, either.  Yes, yes, I know: every day we see another article bemoaning how today's youth do not know basic U.S. history.  This is an incomplete statement.  I personally have completed an extremely rigorous course of higher education, so I can tell you, from personal experience, that today's youth do not know foreign history, either.  


Why is this? Simple: we block it all out with things we prefer to think about.  I am thinking here of a semester I spent in France, where I took a course in foreign history.*****  For one class, we went to Versailles, which features the Palace of Versailles,****** the former home of Louis XIV (son of Rick and Kimberly XIV).  From there we went to the Salle du Jeu de paume, which is historically significant because during the French Revolution, several hundred members of the Third Estate, angered because they had been excluded from a meeting of the Estates-General, went in there to do battle with Sailor Moon.


Okay, so maybe that wasn't it exactly, but to tell you the truth, my mind wandered.  The professor was telling our group about the history of the place, and actually it was very interesting, but as it happened, my friend and I had found something far more interesting: marble busts of historical guys lining the sides of the room.  Each of these guys had their name carved on their front (you can be sure this was not the case in real life; or possibly they all died of bloodloss).  This was how we discovered that one of them was named "Target."  


I should explain, for the benefit of those not In the Know, that Target is an American low-cost department store, which Americans often jocularly refer to with French pronunciation, as "Tar-zhay."  So my friend and I had a conversation like this:


ME: "Tar-zhay."
MY FRIEND: Heh heh! (Beat.)  How do you think you'd explain that to French people?
ME: Huh.  I dunno.
(Beat.)
MY FRIEND: "Tar-zhay."
ME: Heh heh!


Another girl in the class had also broken off from the group and had undertaken the academic pursuit of determining which historical marble guy was hottest.  As a scholar, I thoroughly respected this endeavor.


The moral of this story is, history is JUST NOT INTERESTING, unlike (a) things we watched when we were little, and (b) the question of which Versailles guy is hotter than all the rest (answer: that one guy, whose name and role in history currently escape me).  And it's not just history; the same goes for sociology, philosophy, science, the sociology of philosophical science, and anything else they teach at a college.


So - and call me a bold and inspiring visionary if you like - I'm unveiling my idea for the College of the Future.  At this college, you would be able to major in only one of two subjects: either Saturday Morning Cartoons or Ranking Dead Historical Figures by Hotness.  Just think of the commitment students would demonstrate to their education! 100% of graduates would go into jobs in their chosen fields.  Granted, their chosen fields would be Cartoon-Watching Expert and Hotness Specialist, but would this really be such a bad state of affairs? Would it really be so much worse than the universities' current practice of annually turning out an estimated 16,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 investment bankers?


Anyway, I don't know about you, but I'm sure sold on my idea.  And as a prospective master's degree candidate at the College of the Future,  I humbly suggest that students also be allowed to minor in Coffee.  I even promise to listen to the lectures, sometimes.






* Answer: it was something in my math book.


** Fighting ee-evil by moon-LIGHT!
     Winning lo-ove by day-LIGHT!
     Never running from a REAL FIGHT!
     She is the ONE NAMED SAILOR MOON!
     She will never, yada yada yada, etc.   


*** I wish.


**** I didn't mean right now.  Come back and read this blog.


***** Of course THEY will try to tell you it's domestic history.   


****** And don't try to tell me this is a coincidence.

©2011 Nicola McEldowney

Memory Lane

Welcome to another installment in our acclaimed series, “Creepy-Ass Topics in Psychology.”  Today’s topic is: confabulation.  This is a common phenomenon, especially during early adolescence; some youngsters will confabulate as many as four times a day, as in, “BRANDON! QUIT CONFABULATING ALREADY! I NEED IN THE BATHROOM!”

No, no, wait.  We are confusing our phenomena here.  Confabulation actually refers to false memory -- in other words, belief in an event that never actually took place.  For example, you might believe you once belched the most voluptuous, earth-rocking belch ever to erupt from any human being who was not either a Metropolitan Opera company member or the late Queen Mother.  However, you would be wrong, because that particular belch was actually belched by my cousin in 2006.  There, your memory is false.  See how it works? In fact, if you believe anything at all, that’s probably just you confabulating away again.

Here's something else confabulation explains: nostalgia.  Exhibit A is the wealth of websites out there eulogizing novelty food products that no longer exist, such as “Shake-A-Pudd’n." I found this product at an astounding website called In the ‘80s, where people gather to remember the products of the era.  For instance: if you want to see an example of true and violent human passion, click at your own risk on the entry for Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese, a discontinued product.  For those who prefer just a small sampling, here are a few unretouched comments from visitors to the mac-and-cheese lament page:

• “The Chef Boyardee version is NOTHING like this icon. It was a sad day when this went off the market.”
• “PLEASE OH PLEASE BRING BACK FA MAC AND CHEESE1 I GREW UP ON IT AND ITS MY NUMBER ONE COMFORT FOOD WHY DID YOU STOP MAKING IT? EVERYONE LOVED IT PLEASE PUT IT BACK IN STORE PLEASE?”
• “I remember this in the 1980's. I can close my eyes and remember the unique cheese flavor.”
• “I'm 65 years old and had been eating F.A. mac and cheese, I think, since it first came out. It was that good. I really miss it and hope it comes back on the market in my lifetime.”
• “BRING IT BACK - PLEASE....”

Clearly, people believe they experienced some sort of spiritual orgasm from eating these products, whereas in fact they probably just shook a pudd’n and dumped it in the trash.  (Psssst, Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese fans: I am not referring to you guys, okay? I’m sure that particular product yielded nothing short of a mac-n-cheesy religious experience!  Please don’t come near my home!  Thank you!)  Anyway, you see what I’m saying? Our friend confabulation at work again.

Exhibit B is an op-ed piece, by writer Joan Wickersham, which appeared earlier this month in the Boston Globe (“Boston’s Only Newspaper Named After A Globe”).  Entitled “My first summer job,” the piece is a gentle ode to our first employments, as teenagers, when we spent most of our time at work screwing up.  Yet – as we did not realize at the time, but would realize later – we were learning Valuable Life Skills that would set us on the Path to Adulthood.  The idea here is that these jobs, however pointless or boring we may find them at the time, are teaching us Who We Will Become.  One day, we will realize how much we owe to those initial shy, clumsy experiences – our first summer jobs.

Now, obviously, Ms. Wickersham speaks (a) from her own personal experience and (b) for a whole lot of people, but let’s face it, there are only two possible explanations here.  One, we are looking at a classic case of mass confabulation.  Two – and I mean no disrespect here – her article refers to summer jobs on the Planet Gwuhhhhhhhhh.  Because summer job nostalgia is unmerited on this planet.  Seriously, why would anybody want to remember summer jobs? I advocate electroshock therapy to avoid remembering summer jobs.  I recommend self-induced concussions, if necessary.  

The piece states: “Summer jobs are a rite of passage […] It’s where we fall down and get up again. It’s the place where we make mistakes — not because we’re stupid or lazy, but because we don’t yet know any better. We scoop ice cream, we bag groceries, we find out what happens when we show up late to walk the dog. It’s where we start to learn.”

Somehow this compelled me to look back at the very first essay I ever wrote for this blog – “How I Spent My Summer Vexation” – from which I present my OWN statement on the same topic:

“Being a summer gig, mine has lasted only 2 1/2 months, but bear in mind this is equal to 387 Customer Service years. … [In] Customer Service (motto: “Smilingly Refunding Your Befouled Froot Loops Since 1805″), I have had the opportunity to perform numerous vital functions, such as: (1) Taking back fetid seafood, (2) Taking back REALLY fetid seafood, (3) Announcing over the speaker to various managerial beings with names like ‘Stan’ that they have a call on ‘405,’ (4) Directing customers to the restrooms, and (5) If restrooms are full, directing customers to the Fresh Maine Lobster tank … Thus, needless to say, my mental state has been such of late as to render me unable to create anything nutritive (or non-phlegm-based)."

Not that I am bitter that I didn’t get asked to be in the “Boston Globe.”  If that IS its name.   

So if you ask me, there’s no question that people confabulate their summer-job memories.  I think the real question here is: Why? Not, “Why would we want to have had good experiences?” but “Supposing they were actually bad, why would we want to remember them as good?”  In other words, isn’t there something to be said for remembering things the way they WERE, especially if they were painful and comical? Sure, those experiences are no fun at the time, but there’s endless material to be derived from them.  Not to mention, painful experiences can actually produce joy, pleasure, laughter!  Especially they happen to someone else! If you ask me, the best kind of nostalgia comes from remembering other people’s pain.  Call me sentimental if you must.

I do want to stress that my aim is not to pass judgment on people who remember their summer jobs as positive experiences.  It’s not mine to say whether those people are confabulating their memories or not.*  But, if you are remembering something falsely, there’s something to be said for exploring that memory and seeing if you can’t come to remember things the way they actually were.  Your life will be richer for it.  I know mine has been, ever since I won the Preakness back in ’77, under the name of Seattle Slew.  

Good times.

---

* They are, duh.

©2010 Nicola McEldowney