Time Travel

I have an incredible memory...nearly photographic, to the point where I once flung a book open to the right page and pointed to a word on that page without looking to prove it was indeed correct to a professor.  It means I am pretty good at trivial pursuit.  And that's about it at this point in my life. It made studying pretty easy when I was in school.  I'd give it a once over and have it.  It's a talent that has irritated many friends who were struggling.

Occasionally, this amazing memory has transported me at a moment back in time to my childhood. 

Once, I was riding in the car beside my mother.  I heard a noise.  I sat there for a second, lost in time.  Then without really thinking about the fact that my mother had no clue that I was remembering or what I was remembering, I asked absently, "How did YOU do that?"  She looked at me puzzled and said, "Do what?"  I laughed and said, "Oh, sorry.  I was just remembering going to see the Headley's on Christmas Eve after mass (and we would have had to have been quite small because we started going to midnight mass when we were old enough to) and as we were leaving, Tammy, Greg, and I were looking for Santa Claus in the sky.  And you know there is always a plane up there, with it's red light, on Christmas Eve...when suddenly there were jingle bells!"  My mother's mouth fell open.  "How on earth do you remember that?"  I don't know.  Something reminded me.

Once when I was a teenager, before my parents split up, we were sitting at the dinner table.  I asked whether my third birthday had been the party in the garage or the trip to the circus?  My mother was flabbergasted.  "You don't remember that.  You've just been told about it."  "No.  I remember the entire circus singing Happy Birthday to me."  Again the look I got every time I did this to my mother crossed her face.  And she laughed, "I guess you do remember.  But it wasn't the entire circus.  It was Barnum and Bailey's 100th Anniversary.  The audience sang Happy Birthday to the circus.  Your dad, me, Grannie, and Granddaddy sang it to you."  Oh, and it turned out that both these were my 3rd birthday.  We went to the circus on my birthday and had the party on the weekend...in the garage.

It happened again today.  I was listening to the radio, sort of.  I was driving and the radio was on.  For some reason, Dwight Yokum was talking about the Hatfields and McCoys.  Most children play house.  We played house too, but we also played other pretend games with the boys next door, including Buck Rogers (our favorite), but once we played the Hatfields and McCoys, with a Romeo and Juliet twist.  Generally, I would have taken the romantic lead, but this time, I allowed my little sister to have it.  I couldn't tell you why.  Now my first question is where on earth would an 8 year old have learned about the Hatfields and McCoys?  And my second question is how would we have known to create a Romeo and Juliet?  We were strange kids.