MEMORIES AND ASSOCIATIONS...

How good is your memory?  Mine used to be excellent at recalling what others would regard as inconsequential details, but even when it was operating at what I considered peak efficiency, time later revealed that my memory banks were fooled on occasion.  And I think I know why.  First, though, let me ask you if you recall The PROTECTORS (of course you do - or at least the theme song - if you're around my age) and The TOP SECRET LIFE Of EDGAR BRIGGS?  Even if you are around my age, that one may have slipped under your radar.  It starred DAVID JASON, and was a weekly half hour TV show that was (sort of) the British version of GET SMART, in that it was a spy spoof, with Jason playing an incompetent assistant to the Commander of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Years after the fact, when I thought back to these shows, I seemed to remember watching bits of them while standing in the doorway of the kitchen, looking into the living room in my previous house.  A couple or so years back, when I checked the broadcast dates of both shows, I was surprised to learn that they didn't debut until I was living in my current home, which my family moved to in 1972.  How could my memories have been so far adrift?  Then I realised that the living room door of my new house, in relation to where the fireplace and TV were situated, was pretty much in the same place as the kitchen door of my former residence, so my general impression of the layout of both rooms, in memory, tallied.

Same with The SINGING, RINGING TREE.  For years I associated it with the house we lived in between 1960-'64, but when I checked the broadcast dates, it didn't air until after we'd flitted to another house just down the road.  The route to school from our new domicile was about three quarters the same as from our previous one, and my brother, with me in tow, would sometimes trot up the road to our former street in order to accompany his pals from the surrounding houses.  The show made quite an impression, and I recall us all raving over it on our way to school one morning, but because we'd started from just outside my former home, I later erroneously associated it with my old abode rather than the new one.

So it just goes to show how even those of us who have generally excellent memories can sometimes misremember things, resulting in long-standing associations of events and places being slightly out-of-sync.  Do you recall any such similar instances in your own life, Crivvies?  Then jump right in - the comments section awaits your esteemed presence.       

Posted in: Cartoons