If you think your personal memory is an odd thing, try studying the behavior of family memory. I’m currently hanging with my family. Yesterday we got onto the topic of past animals and pets. My younger sister brought up a sheep the family had dubbed “Orphan Bob.” My father then recounted the time Bob had escaped to single-handedly arrest a neighbor’s move-in efforts by cornering two full-grown men in the moving van and trapping the neighbor lady in her empty home.
After laughing at this, I asked if Bob was indeed a goat, and not a sheep. I didn’t remember ever owning any sheep, just a goat. My sister informed me that Orphan Bob was a family fixture after I left home for college, and that we never had a goat.
Au contraire. I know good and well we had a goat named Billy. He and my three-legged pig, Miss Piggy, would escape through the gap in the fence via the dry creek bed and chase cars together with the rest of the neighborhood dogs. I distinctly remember the confused look on drivers’ faces upon noticing a goat and pig chasing them, barking, and nipping at their tires.
Upon recounting this story, my mother, father, and sister all denied that we ever owned a goat. Unbelievable. They all remembered Miss Piggy, my pet pig that dislocated her front leg in a feeding trough early in her adolescent life. And yet, none of them remembered Billy. For over a year, Billy had been Miss Piggy’s best friend. Of course, Billy would never replace Miss Piggy’s first and closest friend, my brother’s pet calf…who had been destined to become burger. (Miss Piggy would eventually become bacon, but not for a few years.)
My father remembers me hiding in the house and refusing to come outside as he butchered our barn full of rabbits. I, on the other hand, distinctly remember coming home from school to find all but two of the rabbits hanging inside out on the fence.
At this point I’m beginning to doubt my very existence. Could Billy be a metaphor of some sort? Did I invent the memory of Billy to represent my lost childhood innocence? Was Billy an imaginary goat friend? Had I spent a year prancing around the pasture with an imaginary goat? Is that why my neighbors looked at my so strangely?
No. I’m the one in the right. Billy existed. I’m sure of it. It’s my family that’s crazy. Upon further reflection, it’s obvious. Right?
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At the Desk This Week
I’m still tidying up the third season of The Green Ones. I’m pushing through an episode a week and just finished up the third episode (out of six). So, you can probably do that much math. Come on, it’ll be good for you. I’m just about to hit the part of the story where I took a big break and came back after months of not working on it. So…I expect there to be a few more hiccups. We shall see!
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