Nostalgia Corner

The recent Brian Williams kerfuffle had me thinking about false memories.  I have no idea if Williams' memory is a false one or if he just made stuff up.  However, I do know that I  have plenty of false memories.  For example, there's the story about the snake on the porch.  I have a vivid memory of this event.  We lived in the country for the first four or five years of my life, and after my sister, Francelle, was born, my mother would sometimes put her in a playpen on the front porch if the weather was good.  Sometimes she'd put me in there, too, to keep Francelle company.  One day when we were out there, a big snake crawled up on the porch and slithered toward the playpen.  I started yelling, and my mother came to see what was wrong.  She saw the snake, snatched us out of the playpen, and took us inside, where she telephoned for help.  

The call went to the Farrar Lumber Company, where her father was the manager.  As it happened, my other grandfather was there, too, and he's the one who came out to the house and got rid of the snake by chopping its head off with a hoe.  It flopped around a while after the head was removed, which impressed me a lot. 

The snake was a harmless one, supposedly, but my mother was of the opinion that there was no such thing as a harmless snake.  I've been of the same opinion ever since, myself.  This event traumatized me.  I can still remember exactly where the playpen sat, and I can see that black snake slithering across the porch toward us.  It's as real as the keyboard I'm typing on right now.

Except that my mother told me it never happened, or at least not like I think it did.  According to her version of the story, I was in town with my grandfather, and I came back to the house with him when she called for help.  Only my sister was in the playpen, and I was miles away.

Francelle was too young to remember any of this, and my mother was the only other witness.  I'm sure she was right about it, but that's not the way I remember it.  No matter what, I'll always think I was there, staring into that serpent's beady little eyes and watching its tongue flicker in and out of its mouth.