The Mandela Effect

[tonyb]

Okay, Pops. How ’bout a nice cup of tea?

 

[Zombie_61]

I love it when we get new versions of stories we've known forever...*snip*...I've developed a particular taste for alternate / what-if historical fiction. On the more surreal end, I especially enjoyed Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, which without contradicting any actual historical fact as we know it, weaves a lot of fun stuff through the background. The film was ok, but sadly nothing close to the genius of the book. Perhaps one that would make an excellent Netflix show with more time for nuance and detail...

To this day I'm still surprised that I haven't overheard some nitwit wondering aloud in public why they don't teach in school that Abraham Lincoln hunted vampires.

I agree with you--by comparison, the movie suffered from being the "Reader's Digest condensed version" of the novel. I understand why the filmmakers did what they did, but they left a little too much out here and there and the end result was a movie that seemed to jump from one sequence to the next with no rhyme nor reason, overall telling a not-too-coherent tale. The novel was brilliant, and I thought author Seth Grahame-Smith did an excellent job of weaving the fictional vampire element into what was otherwise a history lesson about Lincoln...well, up to a point, anyway. Of course, that's why I found it so odd that he wrote the movie's screenplay--it was almost as if he'd forgotten key elements of his own book's fictional elements and re-wrote them for the movie when that wasn't really necessary. Oh well. For anyone who is new to this and hasn't heard of either, read the book when you have the time and forget the movie even exists.

 

[tonyb]

I have visited on a few occasions what used to be called the Custer Battlefield National Monument but has since been renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

While the monument itself — the grounds, the museum, the cemetery, etc. — have changed little from what I remember of my earlier visits, going back as far as 1969, the commercial facilities just outside the monument are not at all as they were in my memories. It isn’t that the buildings and such have changed so much. That’s not it. It’s that my mind had constructed an almost entirely fictitious setting.

Did I conflate one (or more) other locations with this one? Did I “see” all this nonexistent stuff in dreams?

Beats me. But it serves as a lesson in not assuming my own recollections are infallible.

 

[belfastboy]

I have visited on a few occasions what used to be called the Custer Battlefield National Monument but has since been renamed the Little Big Horn National Monument.

While the monument itself — the grounds, the museum, the cemetery, etc. — have changed little from what I remember of my earlier visits, going back as far as 1969, the commercial activities just outside the monument are not at all as they were in my memories. It isn’t that the buildings and such have changed so much. That’s not it. It’s that my mind had constructed an almost entirely fictitious setting.

Did I conflate one (or more) other locations with this one? Did I “see” all this nonexistent stuff in dreams?

Beats me. But it serves as a lesson in not assuming my own recollections are infallible.

As a young boy I was mad for cowboys & indians. Sitting Bull was one of my heroes, Chief Joseph a close second. My father promised me a trip to The Little Big Horn as a summer holiday. I was stoked as I was sure that if I looked hard enough I would find at least an arrow head if not something greater. Alas my father passed away the next year and the trip never took place. Two years ago my wife and I drove within spitting distance but I decided to let the memories lay as they were. It dawned upon me though that as a 5 year old that point in time was close to the mid point between the actual battle and the present day (2019). Made me feel very old. I was fine with driving on by as I chose to let the memories stay as memories and not risk damaging them with reality and in my mind I still hold the thought that back then I may have found that arrowhead.

 

[Hercule]

I have visited on a few occasions what used to be called the Custer Battlefield National Monument but has since been renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

While the monument itself — the grounds, the museum, the cemetery, etc. — have changed little from what I remember of my earlier visits, going back as far as 1969, the commercial facilities just outside the monument are not at all as they were in my memories. It isn’t that the buildings and such have changed so much. That’s not it. It’s that my mind had constructed an almost entirely fictitious setting.

Did I conflate one (or more) other locations with this one? Did I “see” all this nonexistent stuff in dreams?

Beats me. But it serves as a lesson in not assuming my own recollections are infallible.

It's interesting that you should bring up the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Of late it has been a recommended topic for me on YouTube. Kismet - my interest is now piqued and I definitely need to look into that some more.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I have visited on a few occasions what used to be called the Custer Battlefield National Monument but has since been renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

While the monument itself — the grounds, the museum, the cemetery, etc. — have changed little from what I remember of my earlier visits, going back as far as 1969, the commercial facilities just outside the monument are not at all as they were in my memories. It isn’t that the buildings and such have changed so much. That’s not it. It’s that my mind had constructed an almost entirely fictitious setting.

Did I conflate one (or more) other locations with this one? Did I “see” all this nonexistent stuff in dreams?

Beats me. But it serves as a lesson in not assuming my own recollections are infallible.

I, too, have gone back to old haunts after decades away and have found that for years I was misremembering them. They say that you don’t remember an actual place or event. What most people are actually remembering (supposedly) is the last time they remembered it. So, like the pass a phone message around a circle game, the memory may slightly change over numerous episodes of dredging up the memory. No idea if this is true, but it sounds plausible. And may also explain why an elderly relative tells tales —and believes them!— that couldn’t possibly be true.

 

[tonyb]

It's interesting that you should bring up the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Of late it has been a recommended topic for me on YouTube. Kismet - my interest is now piqued and I definitely need to look into that some more.

It’s worth a stop if you’re in the neighborhood anyway (neighborhoods are quite large out that way, where four-wheel-drive pickups aren’t just fashion statements). It’s all the better if you happen to be there during the annual Crow Fair. Chances are slim you’d ever see a thousand teepees in one place anywhere else.

 

[belfastboy]

I, too, have gone back to old haunts after decades away and have found that for years I was misremembering them. They say that you don’t remember an actual place or event. What most people are actually remembering (supposedly) is the last time they remembered it. So, like the pass a phone message around a circle game, the memory may slightly change over numerous episodes of dredging up the memory. No idea if this is true, but it sounds plausible. And may also explain why an elderly relative tells tales —and believes them!— that couldn’t possibly be true.

Not to venture too deeply into politics but there are a number of current politicians that engage in this and I don't think they are lying....I think they actually think they experienced them.

 

[Tiki Tom]

It’s worth a stop if you’re in the neighborhood anyway (neighborhoods are quite large out that way, where four-wheel-drive pickups aren’t just fashion statements). It’s all the better if you happen to be there during the annual Crow Fair. Chances are slim you’d ever see a thousand teepees in one place anywhere else.

Some years back, visited the battlefield monument and found it very interesting and evocative. The reason we were there was to visit some of my wife’s family in Sheridan, Wyoming. My standout memory was of her cousin showing me a freezer in the garage packed with game meat and saying “Tom, you’ll have to come out here in the fall sometime, and we’ll take some horses into the Bighorn mountains and do some elk hunting.” The guy had no idea what a city slicker I really was! Or maybe he did.

 

[belfastboy]

It's interesting that you should bring up the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Of late it has been a recommended topic for me on YouTube. Kismet - my interest is now piqued and I definitely need to look into that some more.

Steven Ambrose's book on Custer and Crazy Horse is a great read and culminates at the battle.

 

[tonyb]

…
And may also explain why an elderly relative tells tales —and believes them!— that couldn’t possibly be true.

Yes, people who aren’t lying tell untruths nonetheless. And it’s generally best just to let it be, especially when the fantasist is elderly and takes comfort in the fiction.

But let’s not confuse that with deliberately spinning an account of an event to the point that it scarcely resembles what actually happened. Deceptive as it might be, it doesn’t necessarily involve outright lying.

I’m reminded of a synopsis of “The Wizard of Oz” I recently read …

“A young girl arrives in a surreal world where she kills the first person she encounters and then joins forces with three strangers to kill again.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've remembered my entire life going to my great grandmother's funeral in a particular town when I was a little over a year old. I remember looking out the window of the car as we passed an oil company tank farm, and I remember signs that were painted on the side of those tanks. I couldn't read those signs yet, but I remember the image of those signs. And yet my mother insists that I didn't go to my great-grandmother's funeral at all. Whose memory is right? And if I remember going to my grand-grandmother's funeral and seeing oil tanks with signs on them, but I didn't actually go to my great-grandmother's funeral, why are the two events conflated in my mind, and have been my entire conscious life? Or is my mother's memory wrong?

And nearly sixty years later, does the "actuality" of the event even matter? It's an event that now exists *only* in memory, and memory is malleable. My mother remembers it her way, I remember it in mine. Maybe we're both right.

 

[tonyb]

I've remembered my entire life going to my great grandmother's funeral in a particular town when I was a little over a year old. I remember looking out the window of the car as we passed an oil company tank farm, and I remember signs that were painted on the side of those tanks. I couldn't read those signs yet, but I remember the image of those signs. And yet my mother insists that I didn't go to my great-grandmother's funeral at all. Whose memory is right? And if I remember going to my grand-grandmother's funeral and seeing oil tanks with signs on them, but I didn't actually go to my great-grandmother's funeral, why are the two events conflated in my mind, and have been my entire conscious life? Or is my mother's memory wrong?

And nearly sixty years later, does the "actuality" of the event even matter? It's an event that now exists *only* in memory, and memory is malleable. My mother remembers it her way, I remember it in mine. Maybe we're both right.

Remembering anything from that early in life is remarkable indeed.

I *think* I remember events from maybe age 3. I have dim recollections of living in public housing made from what had been military barracks. I’m still friends with a fellow I’ve known since that time and place. Jeff is his name; he's a year or two older than me.

I’m more confident of my memories dating from a year or so later, when we lived in our little house across the field from the F.S. Royster fertilizer plant. Jeff and his mom and siblings followed us to that street and took up residence in a rental house a couple doors down. So I’m left to wonder to what degree those memories are influenced by Jeff’s, and my older brothers’, one of whom is no longer with us, and the other of whom is so in the habit of speaking untruths that I wouldn’t trust him not to fabricate stories on the spot.

 

[Harp]

Steven Ambrose's book on Custer and Crazy Horse is a great read and culminates at the battle.

American military tradition reveres the Battle of the Little Bighorn with a parochialism tinged
romance that belies salient facts such as Custer's decision to divide his command casting his cavalry
troop to merciless fate at the hands of a numerically superior enemy force. Once cornered and
hoplessly surrounded a suicidal outbreak among the 7th Cavalry erupted, a legend that has persisted
within Indian veteran accounts despite attempt to deny this. Every trooper on that field knew he
would die and capture would be a cruel delay of the inevitable. Custer caught a round in the chest,
but another bullet to the left temple remains an open question. A grass fire thirty or forty years
ago cleared the battlefield grass and sage, an archeology traverse followed and cartridge locale
with enhanced computer graphics gave further testament to the probable. The last stand was over
within thirty minutes. The Souix and Cheyenne women stripped the dead, a subsequent military
burial, wolves came to feast and the site eventually cleaned for posterity.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I've remembered my entire life going to my great grandmother's funeral in a particular town when I was a little over a year old. I remember looking out the window of the car as we passed an oil company tank farm, and I remember signs that were painted on the side of those tanks. I couldn't read those signs yet, but I remember the image of those signs. And yet my mother insists that I didn't go to my great-grandmother's funeral at all. Whose memory is right? And if I remember going to my grand-grandmother's funeral and seeing oil tanks with signs on them, but I didn't actually go to my great-grandmother's funeral, why are the two events conflated in my mind, and have been my entire conscious life? Or is my mother's memory wrong?

And nearly sixty years later, does the "actuality" of the event even matter? It's an event that now exists *only* in memory, and memory is malleable. My mother remembers it her way, I remember it in mine. Maybe we're both right.

Easy enough to determine if your great- grandmother passed away when you were a year old, isn't it?

I can recall hearing steam locomotive whistles from our apartment when I was about the same age. For me, that would have been 1955-1956. Diesels were pretty ubiquitous on the mainline railroads by then, but a few old steam switch engines labored on in the region, within close enough earshot that I could have heard them through an open window at night.

A lot is imprinted during those early years. Some can barely be recalled. Others with vivid detail. For some reason olfactory triggers are very strong. The distinct smell of creosote treated railroad ties still triggers happy memories of watching trains as a tiny tot. Old Spice Aftershave reminds me of my dad.

 

[belfastboy]

American military tradition reveres the Battle of the Little Bighorn with a parochialism tinged
romance that belies salient facts such as Custer's decision to divide his command casting his cavalry
troop to merciless fate at the hands of a numerically superior enemy force. Once cornered and
hoplessly surrounded a suicidal outbreak among the 7th Cavalry erupted, a legend that has persisted
within Indian veteran accounts despite attempt to deny this. Every trooper on that field knew he
would die and capture would be a cruel delay of the inevitable. Custer caught a round in the chest,
but another bullet to the left temple remains an open question. A grass fire thirty or forty years
ago cleared the battlefield grass and sage, an archeology traverse followed and cartridge locale
with enhanced computer graphics gave further testament to the probable. The last stand was over
within thirty minutes. The Souix and Cheyenne women stripped the dead, a subsequent military
burial, wolves came to feast and the site eventually cleaned for posterity.

Every history of the battle I have ever read was very critical of the command decisions. Custer's luck finally ran out. His modus operandi in battle worked very well until it didn't. Reno's forces would have been wiped out as well but the Sioux warriors tired/bored of the protracted battle on the flank packed up and left one by one.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The date of my great grandmother's death, and the town where the funeral was held, and the fact that you have to go thru a town along the Kennebec River where there were two oil tank farms all check out. have no memory of the funeral itself -- I probably was asleep, but the image of those oil tanks has been with me my entire conscious life. It literally is the first memory I have. And yet, according to my mother I specifically wasn't there.

 

[belfastboy]

The date of my great grandmother's death, and the town where the funeral was held, and the fact that you have to go thru a town along the Kennebec River where there were two oil tank farms all check out. have no memory of the funeral itself -- I probably was asleep, but the image of those oil tanks has been with me my entire conscious life. It literally is the first memory I have. And yet, according to my mother I specifically wasn't there.

My sister and I, estranged for close to 20 years, reconnected during the care of our mother in her last days. My sister and I spent much time reflecting on our childhood. It was so interesting to hear her version of events that we shared. Sometimes totally divergent, other times we matched details to the letter and other times I would have no recollection of the event at all and vice versa. I never argue with my wife anymore about past events...insisting my version is the accurate one because at this point in my life I accept my memories as they are but doubt their veracity.

 

[Tiki Tom]

My wife has a phenomenal memory. She remembers details that I would never remember. I think I have a certain “memory style”, i.e., if I deem an event to be unimportant or insignificant, I am much less likely to remember it a few months on. On the other hand, my wife is amazed at my recall of historic dates, names, and details.

 

[Harp]

Every history of the battle I have ever read was very critical of the command decisions. Custer's luck finally ran out. His modus operandi in battle worked very well until it didn't. Reno's forces would have been wiped out as well but the Sioux warriors tired/bored of the protracted battle on the flank packed up and left one by one.

Custer was treated for syphilis at Ft Sill, Oklahoma earlier in his career and this disease
might account erratic command decisions although, like his possible suicide, remain merely
speculative. Interesting note however. He also supposedly fathered a son by an Indian lass
yet this is obscured. His remains exhumed and returned to West Point where he now
lies beside his wife, Elizabeth who died a Park Avenue dower. Custer's corpse fell prey to packs
of ravaging wolves as did the rest of his command, so his bones were scattered.

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust...

-Thomas Gray