Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
          --Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

I remember my mother telling me about going under Niagra Falls on a boat, and that you had to wear a raincoat. (This is associated for me with the I Love Lucy episode about Niagra Falls, if there was one; and also the Three Stooges Niagra Falls routine: "Niagra Falls! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch...." and then Moe or Larry falls upon Curly, who's said the dreaded words.) I wanted to do that, but I also felt disappointed; I thought it must be like showering. I thought you let the falls hit you directly. I was interested in waterfalls, maybe from James Fenimore Cooper or maybe from movies where people went over falls, and I'd never seen any. And somehow I wanted them to be more than just a tall shower.

posted by william 9:00 AM
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I remember that one of the things that was so interesting about the time my mother and I chased the gerbil around the house and rescued it when it darted out from under the fridge was that we were both trying to do the same thing without her being any better at it than I was. I liked the fact that we were doing this as equals, that she didn't know any better than I did what would happen or how things would end up. And then when the gerbil appeared and we grabbed it, it was great that we, both of us together, had succeeded! (I think my father was in Chicago at the time.)

posted by william 8:38 PM
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I remember people saying "Uy-ya-yai." I remember having a vague sense of how to spell that -- really like the Hebrew double Yud that stands for the Lord somehow, maybe -- rather like in Borges's proof for the existence of God: he imagines a small flock of birds rising, fewer than ten but not 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9; God alone therefore can know the number, and so God must exist. God alone knows how to spell Ah-yi-yi? Which maybe is a little closer to how I imagine spelling it. Anyhow, do people say this in any more? Where did it come from? Where did it go?

posted by william 12:29 AM
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I remember that people used to soak their feet in water with Borax dissolved in it. I remember the big blue bottle of Borax crystals (or I think it was a jar), and that old people had such jars, and that old people in cartoons soaked their feet. I have a very vague sense that I once saw my uptown grandmother soaking her feet, which really seems a taboo sight (and I may not have seen it), partly perhaps because of the universal adult disapproval of going around barefoot, and the fact that they always wore at least slippers, and my grandparents socks or stockings. Certainly in cartoons and movies the people soaking their feet were old.

posted by william 10:38 PM
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I remember hating hard candy, but often forcing myself to have it. The candy rage in kindergarten was this orange and white disk with a string through the center that you held and spun, and licked the disk as it rotated. They were ridiculously cheap – a bag of five or so for less than a rupee. Five-a-bag was economical, but it meant, unfortunately, that having at last yielded and bought them, I had to finish all five though they were making me quite sick. Then there was my fifth birthday cake – a train engine and driver, and someone suggested generously that I eat the sugar driver. A privilege – since all the kids seemed to want it. But it was a struggle to finish it... I’d look around enviously at people eating cake, but it seemed like I was expected to love what I was given, and I couldn’t very well give up and declare that I didn’t. (I did, eventually, after an eternity of nibbling through the head. But by then, there was no more cake.) Then there were candy cigarettes, but I had realized that you didn’t have to actually consume them – just carry them around and suck on one occasionally, so people knew you were up on the current candy trends. But even sucking was near-unendurable. I remember the cigarettes got banned in school after a while, which was a relief from my point of view...

posted by sravana 7:40 PM
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Agoraphiliac remembers:

I remember the only time I ever fainted. I was in my mid-twenties. It was a hot summer day, and I had been sick, had been taking codeine for a bad cough. I was standing in a long line at an un-air-conditioned health-food store.

When I got to the cashier, he said "How are you today?" I was filling out the check and my vision narrowed; I could see only part of the check and everything else was swirling black and green. It seemed important to answer the cashier's question. How was I? It was so hard to say. I said, "I feel...." and I paused, struggling to find the right word. And when I found it, I was so pleased, I said it decisively and with great satisfaction: "Faint!"

Then I was on the floor, looking up.

--Cross-posted from Agoraphiliac's Livejournal

posted by william 7:17 AM
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I remember my cowboy hat, which I think I had before I got the rest of my cowboy regalia, and my Indian Chief feather dress cap. I remember being surprised, a little later, that most Indians only wore one feather, not the whole train. (And later still, a Cherokee came to visit our class, in civies, which was really interesting.) I remember getting the regalia, the revolver, which I liked, the belt, which hung too low, and which had bullets which I didn't get since it was a caps revolver. I remember that I thought the holster and belt would be like that which belonged to policemen, so I think that's what disappointed me. I remember the string on my cowboy hat, and the pleasure of sucking it, and I remember the bordering worked on the edge of the brim, and how I didn't understand what that was for.

posted by william 10:04 AM
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I remember that in 1978 when Pope Paul VI died the New York Times was on strike. John Paul took his name as a tribute to his two predecessors. (I remember when John XXIII died and my father's genuine grief, since he was humane, liberal, humble, penitent, all of which was part of the architecture of Vatican II.) I remember that there was comment on this two-named Pope. The he died a month later, and John Paul II took his name as a tribute to John Paul I. And the Times was still on strike. I remember an executive of the paper lamenting that they had missed the death of not just one pope but two!

posted by william 8:46 PM
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I remember learning from a friend's brother that if you filled hot water over cold in a bucket and plunged your hand in, you could feel the layers of different temperatures... intense cold at the fingertips to near-scorching warmth above the elbows. I was skeptical till I tried it myself... but then it made sense... we'd just learnt about land and sea breezes in geography: hot air rises up, cold stays down. But this wasn't about air, it was water... yet, obviously a similar concept. I guess that was when I realized there must be a better explanation than the slogan-like 'hot air rises', and the fact that it was easier to think about mixing and diffusion in liquids than in gases gave me some vague, intuitive idea about thermal energy.

posted by sravana 3:45 PM
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I remember Mr. Donohue, in Seventh grade math I think, ragging on my friend Fred Cohen. He had said something wackily wrong, maybe intentionally. Mr. Donahue, said, "God is that silly. What were you, born on April Fool's Day?" Fred, triumphantly wielding the truth in response: "No -- I was born ten minutes after midnight on April 2." Mr. Donahue, without missing a beat: "See, you couldn't even do that right." I was astounded with how quick and funny his comeback was.

posted by william 8:33 AM
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