Last time I posed this question: If you were able to replay any given day of your life (starting at an age when you are capable of remembering things), would you be able to recall at least one thing that happened on that day? I postulated that I think I’d be able to recall something—at least one thing—from the large majority of the days of my life. However, I did not express rock-solid confidence in this speculation.Today I want to examine this question from a different angle—not in terms of replaying a day in your life, but rather by taking a distant memory or event and trying to pinpoint the exact day on which it happened. Let’s look at a few examples.
In a recent blog entry, I shared a memory from my early childhood about a day when I forgot to pay for my milk in the cafeteria. My question now is this: Is there any way that I can figure out the day (or even the month) that this episode took place?
I think you can readily see that this is a difficult task. In many cases it would be impossible to determine the exact day on which an event or memory took place. But as I have pondered this whole idea over the past twenty years or so, I have come to the conclusion that many memories and events are possible to reconstruct—even more than I initially thought. Doing so is like doing detective work, and sources such as family and the internet are very helpful.
Let’s look at my “forgot-to-pay-for-my-milk” experience. This is what I know: I know it happened when I was in first grade, so it happened in either 1972 or 1973. And it was a school day, so it happened sometime between Monday and Friday. And that’s about all I can say about it. Suppose, though, that I reminisced about this with my parents, and my mom said something like, “I remember that day very well. You came home from school and told me all about it. I had been sad about Aunt Matilda’s death the previous day, and this cheered me up.” Well, then, in that case, I could do some research and find out the day that Aunt Matilda died. Then, Voila!, I would then have “reconstructed” the exact day that the milk event happened. (I don’t really have an Aunt Matilda, it is just an attention-grabbing name used for illustrative purposes.)
What has fascinated me is that I have been able to combine distant memories with corroborating or verifiable facts and have come up with exact dates of events in my life. I recently did a silly experiment in this regard on the subject of rock concerts that I attended in high school and college. By combining the memories of specific conversations with relatives and specific known events in my life, and with the aid of the internet and my college yearbooks, I was able to pinpoint the exact dates of eight different concerts that I attended. For instance, I saw the Police in concert on August 20, 1983, Billy Joel on February 14, 1984, and the Cars on July 16, 1984. The Billy Joel concert is a good example of what I am talking about. I have a very distinct memory of being at that concert on Valentine’s Day, and I remember it was in my senior year of high school. Joel’s past concert dates are available online, so I was easily able to look it up and verify that my memory was correct.
All this has led me to an ambitious idea, and it is where I will leave this subject for now. I have never kept a diary or journal in my life. But all this pondering has persuaded me that I can reconstruct one to a sizable degree. So over time, as memories come back to me, I do a little digging to see if I can verify exact dates of events. And if I can’t get the exact date, I can sometimes narrow it down to a range of dates, or perhaps a particular month. When I can deduce a date or range of dates, I jot it down. And at some point, when I have the time, I'll transfer all of the notes onto an Outlook calendar, or something like that.
In the meantime, I hope I don’t forget where I put all of those notes!
That is an ambitious and interesting project you are laying out for yourself.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, I have for years (since 1981)kept just small "event" notes in little black Day Planner books. Additionally, I have some "occasional" diary writings from the 1970's.
It is fun to go back sometimes and peruse the things we were doign 10, 20 and even 30 years ago. Also, however, it can be discouraging to do this. Because I see, and regret, all the wasted money and effort I lavished on the stock market!
Soooo, it can cut both ways!!
Dave. You don't like History do you? :) Pretty neat to reconstruct those concert dates. For me, I don't think I want to tax my brain that much. I do know I am going to a concert on Sunday and that I have gone to concerts in the past. Beyond that, I don't think I could pull off what you have done. My journals are usually consist of 2 or 3 days and then that's it for many years and then maybe I start another one for another day or two. But with the blogging, I am closer than ever to a consistent journal. How about this for a challenge. What day did you win your first wrestling match?
ReplyDeleteAlso. Sorry for the writing problems in the above comment. I am so tired and it so late and this Internet is a time bandit. And I meant to tell you that I impressed with your skill. You should be in Intelligence or something. :)
ReplyDeleteIs that the Billy Joel concert Vicki and I went to with you and Craig? I remember a Joel concert, I just don't remember when it was. I DO remember it was awesome.
ReplyDeleteI know of a tool that might come in handy for you as you are reverse-engineering your journal. Go to timeanddate.com, and in the upper right corner, choose "Calendar for Any Year". There you can enter in the year and get the calendar for any year. This way, you can find out what day something occurred. For example, I looked up 1969, and found that I was born on a Thursday.
jim--believe it or not, i have given your question some thought (when was my first wrestling win?). i know it was in january 1982 (a month with five fridays, saturdays, and sundays, by the way), and i remember the school and my opponent's name. in order to get the exact date, i would have to go back to horsham to a library and look up the archives of the local newspaper, b/c i know that the results were always printed there.
ReplyDeletem--good call on timeanddate.com -- i use it a lot. and, i was going to give you a billy joel trivia question but you jumped in. it was an awesome concert. for some reason, i think it was you, me, vicki, and wendy wildsmith. don't ask me why i think i remember that. craig might have been there too, i don't remember that for sure. what do you think?