Remember When

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

“History is written by the victors.” Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
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Some people might refer to reminiscing as “oral histories” – others might call it sharing sea stories or for better or worse: creating mythologies.

In The Sopranos episode entitled, “Remember When” - Tony Soprano described “reminiscing as the lowest form of conversation,” when he realized that the content of most of his conversations with his thug friends consisted of a long string of “remember when” tales.

It seems that the ritual of repeating specific stories again and again empowers a single version of the story and turns it into a reality. And like the tale of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” with enough repetition, eventually the legend becomes the truth.

The power of “remember when” tales is best illustrated in family gatherings or high school reunions.

In families, it is easy to label or stereotype which family member is the smart one, the trouble maker, the clown, the athlete, etc. through the repetition of family stories (or oral histories). This does not mean that the smart one is not funny…nor the troublemaker is not also an athlete…but the power of these stories becoming fact…is that they help to maintain the family constellation of pecking orders and hierarchies.

The same can be said for high school reunions. It doesn’t matter if the Quarterback blew out his knee, lost his scholarship, and is now pumping gas at the corner filling station. At the class reunion he is still the Big Man on Campus. By the same token, although the chess playing nerd who was bullied through high school is now a dot-com multimillionaire….he is still the considered a geek at the reunion…thanks to the repetition of those “remember when” tales.

So the next time you are sharing a family story…you might want to consider this question, “Are you sharing a complete vision of the family history? Or are you perpetuating a single version of a more complex story?