RONNIE, BABY!

Blog number Ninety-two                              21 May 2007

I just finished reading a book about fans - the people kind, not the cooling kind.  I wrote that line to someone else recently.  I hope it wasn't for my blog.  Signs of senility, ya know.  Anyhow, the book was much more interesting and informative than I thought it would be.  The author likes to get inside the heads of people - including his own.  I like that.  One of my favorite day dreams is that I become able to read people's minds - especially that of babies.  I very often wonder what they are thinking when they do their "baby" thing.  Like staring at their mother's eyes for hours on end. 

But I digress.

Not that long ago I realized that memories are completely unreliable.  Not that all one's memories are not what they seem to be, but that you can't trust any of them.  Surely you have had the experience of remembering something and somebody else remembers it differently?  The thing that is amazing to me about memories that two people remember differently is that both of them have a "video" picture of the event running in their minds as they are remembering.  It's not like remembering history dates.  These are reruns of actual happenings.  So between two people remembering an event differently, there are two "TVs" showing the same event differently.

Now back to the fan book.  On the last page the author is describing going to view Ronald Reagan's body lying in its coffin.  He reminisces with his father about getting Reagan's autograph.  "Remember when he (Reagan) thought the fake signature was real, and I said it wasn't, and he said, 'Well, I guess you know better than me' ?"

My Dad, who was also there, said, "That's not how it happened.  Reagan said, 'I already signed this,' and you were quiet for a second, and then you said, 'Then could you please sign it again?' "

Amazed, I disagreed.  I told my dad that I remembered the exchange as clear as yesterday.  Later, though, I started wondering if Dad was right.  After all, he, as a father, was focused on his son; and I, as a fan, was focused on my star.  The exchange that I remember is more plausible: its last line captures Ronald Reagan's careless affability; it's the kind of thing he would have said.  The exchange my dad remembers is just as credible: its last line captures the gentle persistence with which I've always approached the famous, although my own memory adds the cheekiness that drove me, too.

Ain't that weird, about memories?

Yes it is.