What do you know? or Minding our Matters
Before the age of google, some of my friends and I had a thing called History Club. History Club, often accompanied by cocktails, was basically four or five people sitting around who would pick a random historical event or figure and then discuss the things we knew about it or them. Someone would say Napoleon and someone might add he was the guy who began the tradition of putting ornamental buttons on dress jackets to keep his soldiers from wiping their noses on their sleeves. History Club was a fascinating and often hysterical glimpse into the collective knowledge of a group. We would pick a mixture of things that were well known and obscure and the night often ended with outright fabrication and twisted history similar to those fractured fairy tales on the Bullwinkle show.
One thing I liked about History club was that the well from which to draw was deep. Bullwinkle could just as easily have been the topic of conversation as Tiananmen Square and we encouraged one another to be as forthcoming as possible with what we thought we knew. Sometimes, saying that stuff out loud would encourage me to think about where I came by some of my information and this is what my post is really about.
I think the mind is an amazing hunter/gatherer. It is always on the lookout for information, weighing the legitimacy of sources and trying to determine if the information obtained is worth storing away and repeating to others. As an example, I once heard that firefighters really hate metal joist hangers because they have a very low melting point and can fail easily in a fire endangering them. I do not know for sure it is true but I feel like the now forgotten source was credible. And I feel like I may have heard it from more than one credible source. Here’s the rub, after having worked with metal joist hangers a good bit and spending some time amongst working blacksmiths, I cannot be sure that the second credible source was not me. By that I mean that I may have taken in this information at one point, deemed it legitimate based on what I know and then embellished the story to bolster my belief. It is possible.
Is what we really know is all mixed up with what we think we know? More than once I have heard something come out of my mouth that I had to question. I mean, how do I really know that lichen is a sign of good air quality? I am not a lichen specialist but I read it online in an article that seemed pretty authoritative. Was it written by a lichen specialist? I don’t know.
Today, I stopped for a Gatorade and noticed I was parked in front of a bunch of cattails. Did you know, if you dry a cattail, you can light it with a match, it will smolder and the smoke will keep away mosquitoes? No kidding, someone told me so when I was little.
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Hi Fran,
On the radio I heard about two guys at a party. The first guy was telling a story to a group of people, complete with intricate details. The second guy couldn’t believe his ears because the the story his friend was telling had actually happened to him.
It will be the very height of summer when you get here. Have a safe and trouble free move and please contact me if I can be of any help at all.
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It is true Amy, great storytellers can get us to do and believe all kinds of things. It struck me, while writing this, that our penchant for stories might just be at the heart of our memory embellishments.
It is also true that some stories, once told, remain with us forever. I think the story of your cat coming back after a year is one of those for me. You often hear of that type of thing but it is rare that you hear of it first hand!
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A few months back I was telling a story to my parents. It is one I have told many times, and my father especially enjoys it.
A good friend of mine, who is nicknamed ‘Gretel’, was an avid community supporter and always attended the town council meetings. Lisbon Iowa is a small community of several thousand. He never missed a meeting, until one day he had a work conflict and there wasn’t any way he could change his schedule.
The next day, when walking through town, people kept congratulating him. Nobody would tell him what was up. It took him half the day, but eventually he discovered that there had been a discussion, the mayor had resigned, and by the end of the meeting, he had been elected Mayor.
My Dad always chuckles at this story and I enjoy telling it. But I had told it so many times, I wasn’t sure if all my facts were correct, or if I had made most of it up. So I called ‘Gretel’ and told him that I had been telling a story, which he was the principal subject, but I couldn’t remember if it was true. So I told him the story, just as I had told it, and he laughed.
“Sadly, that is an accurate account. I served my one term, was done, and now know better than to miss a meeting.”
We both laughed.
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It’s so true that it is a good thing to stop and think about what we think. Or how we think. Everything that pops (or drips) out of our minds is a result of what we put IN our minds, in a new form, sometimes recognizable, sometimes so convoluted the ingredients are indistinguishable. An amazing mash-up of truth, fiction, legend and dreams – the human mind is a wonder. May we never lose that wonder.