David Carr The Night of the Gun

I've been reading David Carr's book The Night of the Gun where he relives his 20s in detail and then his later life and goes back to revisit the people who lived it with him to see what they remember about the past. The gist of the tale is the night the book title is taken from the ownership or if there was a gun or what happened with it differ hugely as with all the recollections in the book. Depending on the person’s personality, ability to recall, or differing interpretations among other quirks plus what actually happened all culminate into what each person ultimately remembers as truth. It's a good book, one that kept me up till 2am when I finished it!!

Personally I've found this to be true in all groups especially families or extended families. We had an ah-ha moment in our family recently where decades of seemingly mean, cruel, or rude remarks suddenly all made sense. (Also my mother’s dedication to being strict with her kids was explained partially, it backfired in a big way, she raised two black sheep!) Decades of secrecy were suddenly shot down and it turns out EVERYONE knew, just not anyone under the age of say 75 in 2006. This led me to question relatives on another facet of family history which turned out to have two VERY different interpretations. We won't go into detail because some of those who care are still alive but it was either a case of abandonment and rescue of an unmarried mother or parental interference in a love affair that turned out badly and then the parental influence repeating itself in the subsequent generation. That's why my cousin and I are only 1/2 cousins. Seems our family has more than it's share of these accounts and differing interpretations but not enough to cause rifts, just puzzlement. Such as the great great-grandfather that abandoned his family and had another family but came back to visit the first family and wife, to give money or see his first wife hasn't been decided, they would meet in the woods across the highway from where I now sleep.

We question our children’s memories and those of our grandchildren, how could they possibly possess the rich and varied fabric our memories bring us? I let my kids go wander the farm but not the countryside like my parents did with me. My grandchildren had their Rhino type vehicle over here on Thanksgiving and rode it around the farm, they were never out of hearing and seldom out of sight though, that’s just the way the world has changed since the days when I was a child and couldn’t be found for hours and hours. They and their mother and aunt tried to find where the original log house stood before MY great grandparents moved it to it's present location and couldn't. I think I can find where it stood but we are talking almost 130 years ago. Family legend has it that it was the doctor’s house and when our town was burned during the civil war it stood on the south end of town and was spared. My great-grandparents moved from Germany with their 5 children and bought the farm and moved the house piece by piece, log by log, to the almost exact center of the farm. It's been covered in tin for as long as I can remember so it's remarkably well preserved. It's also hideously spooky with tattered wallpaper, broken boards and it's share of creatures (and lipstick writing on a door from my cousin and I one day!!). BUT it's a memory for my grandchildren and hopefully their children. So is riding the Rhino through the fields with their mother and their aunt whooping and jumping terraces, terrace jumping is a big sport and probably not what my dad had in mind when he built them but oh well. My great-grandparents never thought an automobile would be involved in a nostalgic memory, much less something called a Rhino, I never thought guitar hero or wii boxing would be a family memory but they are intertwined now too. All of these memories whether pleasant or unpleasant are part of our wealth as a person, as people, as a country, and as citizens of the world and should be cherished.