Memories

There are two stories that I "remember" about myself as a child. I put "remember" into quotation marks because I don't know if I actually remember them independently, or if I remember being told the stories and have constructed my own memories from them. I suspect the latter.

The first one would have happened when I was just over two years old. My grandmother was at our house watching me while my mother was in the hospital giving birth to my sisters. Supposedly Daddy called and Grandma put me on the phone; my dad said, "Guess what? You have two new twin sisters," and I said, "We had spaghetti for dinner!" only pronounced in the cute little-kid way, "psghetti."

The second memory also involves my grandmother. I was out somewhere with her in the winter, and there was ice on the ground. She picked me up and carried me under her arm, like a sack of potatoes, afraid I would fall on the ice. I said, "I think I'd rather walk!" I must have been about two or three then, since she was a small woman and I can't imagine her carrying me like that if I was much older.

I don't think I have any photographs of my grandmother. I've been thinking that I need to bring the photograph albums home again from my folks' house sometime and scan some of them in. I have pictures of my grandmother in my head, just not digital, or paper, ones.

Anyway, the whole reason I was thinking about this was the recent news story about scientists proving that they can induce memories, that is, make people believe that they remember things that couldn't possibly have happened, like meeting Bugs Bunny at Disney World. And how eyewitness accounts of crimes are seldom trustworthy, particularly if several people have gotten together and talked about them. It's interesting, anyway, wondering which of our memories are real and which are constructed.

Like that alien abduction a few years ago . . .