Did you know…that there’s such a thing called Childhood Amnesia? Most people can’t recall memories earlier than four years old, while the commonly accepted limit is around two and half years old.1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia#False_memories
Yeah, in fact, it happens to pretty much everybody.
I had no clue such a phenomenon existed until I was 30 or so, when one day I was regaling my Hawaiian coworkers2They were actually mainly German & Indian–we just worked together in Hawai’i. about some extremely early memory of mine from when I was around a year old.
Very much to my surprise, those asshats absolutely refused to believe me, saying it was impossible to remember events before 3ish. Again, this was the first I had ever heard of childhood amnesia, so it never occurred to me that having such early memories would make me a particularly rare specimen.
…rare enough that your supposed esteemed colleagues would flat-out call you a liar to your face, nonetheless!
Okay, so enough #HumbleBragging about my memory. The point is, childhood amnesia exists, it is the norm, and for some reason I was passed over.
During my first year of graduate school, most of us had to earn our keep by teaching undergraduate physics labs. Now, at some point in time, I will get around to sharing with you the tale of how I know, with an embarrassing degree of confidence, that teaching is not my calling in life. Long story short: I absolutely hated having to teach.
The one saving grace that made this bearable was that for about the first 15-25 minutes of each lab I had a captive audience that had no choice but listen to me talk.
I was supposed to use that time to refresh the students about the physics concepts that day’s lab would be featuring. And sometimes I did that.
Other times, when I was feeling particularly loquacious, it would look more like a half-assed stand-up comedy routine than a scientific lecture.
By the way here’s a tip: turns out, they hate it when you do that. Apparently most of them only care about getting their lab work out of the way so they can get back to partying or whatever it is youths these days do in their spare time. After all, my childhood stories probably aren’t going to be on the test.
One day, for reasons that I ironically cannot recall, I felt compelled to share with them a particularly porcine-themed story from the days of my youth.
I grew up in rural southwest Kansas, and like most of rural America one of the most anticipated events of the year would be the county fair. And, as a yung’en, one of the most exciting events at the Morton County Fair was…the Pig Catch.
Well, at least that’s what we called it. It may often go by other names such as pig wrestling, greased-pig chase, and pig scramble, to name but a few.3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_wrestling That reminds me–help me remember to tell you about the time in college that someone made the mistake of putting me in charge of a spring social event–just mention “Hawaiian County Fair” and you’re guaranteed to jog my memory.
Diversion aside, I’m trying to provide an explanation of what a pig chase entails, for those uninitiated souls out there. In the kiddie version that I’m acquainted with, you would have somewhere between 25-50 kids line up on one end of a dirt arena or otherwise enclosed field. Then, the adults would release a predetermined number of unlubricated piglets. According to my calculations, I figure that they would be shooting for a Kid-to-Piglet Ratio (KPR) of ~5.
After that, the local celebrity rodeo announcer would yell “Breakfast is served, now go get you some bacon!” and the kids would make a mad dash trying to pin one of the little porkers down for at least 10 seconds.
Do that, and the prize of a sweet, sweet $1 bill would be yours, along with the unmitigated respect of your peers.
Now, the pig catch is strongly tied to the earliest of my many memories of the county fair. Indubitably, the most likely reason for this was because my brother a couple years my senior, One Skinny J, aka 1SJ, was a ----- pig-catching champion.
I think you had to be at 2-3 years old to participate, and by the time I could throw my hat in the ring, 1SJ already had 3 years and 3 pig-catching titles under his belt. Naturally, I wholeheartedly expected to follow in my big bro’s foot steps and be a regular champion myself.
Okay, class, if you’ve been paying attention, the current setting of the story is the Morton County Fairgrounds, August 1984. And it’s my time to claim the glorious pig-pouncing destiny that awaits me.
My 3-year-old self took his spot amongst the 30 other kids, and nervously awaited the signal to go get ’em. After what seemed like an eternity, finally we got the green light to go tackle some livestock.
Turns out, it’s harder than it looks.4That’s what she said! ALOT harder.
As I was bearing down on my first prey, another, slightly more athletic kid came out of nowhere and straight-up knocked the pig off its feet and 5 feet to the side of me.
Nuts. On to the next one then!
One after another, though, some other kid would get there first.
I was running out of piglets fast.
But then I noticed something odd. As soon as a piglet was caught, several other kids would rush in to help keep the rascal pinned until a judge could come over and verify the take-down.
Before my eyes, all the kids were clustering into groups of 4 or 5. Usually the kid who actually caught it would be holding it by its neck, while their associates would be entwined with one of the various limbs.
Quickly realizing that I probably wasn’t going to be catching a pig myself that day, I decided, like every other literal hanger-on, that I could at least get credit for an assist.
Soon enough, all the piglets had been downed, so I found myself trying to find a group that appeared to need some help.
Instead, I ended up repeatedly pre-creating one of the more heart-wrenching scenes from the 1994 Robert Zemeckis classic, Forrest Gump:
I shit you not, I was the only kid not touching some part of a bacon-making machine. I, alone, was the sole non-pig-catching fool that day.
Or so it seemed.
At the last second, I spotted a lone hind leg that didn’t already have a child hanging off of it.
I rushed over to the group, and towering over 4 very much unwelcoming faces, I mumbled, “Umm, you guys need some help?”
Then with a grunt, I tried to pin the leg down with my foot. However, in my attempt, I ended up kicking at it instead, missing the pig altogether, losing my balance, and kind of lightly stomping on its foot as I came down.5Don’t worry, it wasn’t hurt.
Needless to say, I earned neither a sweet, sweet $1 bill nor the unmitigated respect of my peers that day.
And, class, what lesson have we learned today?
It was in that moment that I realized that I had whole life full of socially awkward moments ahead of me…
In retelling this story, I have to somewhat appreciate the meta nature of sharing that with my physics lab group. You know, since I decided the best way to explain to them why they were being forced to needlessly suffer through my own private therapy session…was by providing the origin story of my awkwardness in a very inappropriate classroom setting.
Anyways, the point of the story is be thankful if you were blessed with childhood amnesia like a normal person. Heck, I would give up bacon if it meant having my prize pig story zapped from my over-active memory.
Damn. Didn’t work.6This makes more sense if you have read Death By Hangnail…I’ll wait here.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about how 1SJ “fared” that year, yes, of course that beast7bastard would sound so much better here… won his 4th consecutive $1 bill moments later when the older kids got there turn.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s a picture that should be more than enough proof:
Content created on: 10/11 June 2020 (Wed/Thurs)
Footnotes & References:
Do you remember Greased Chong?
Aww, some foreshadowing, I see. Nice.
Gotta get the people hyped for Hawaiian County Fair story! (As alluded to in this story.)
Without ruining it for those who don’t have inside knowledge of, uh, to that which you refer, I just wanna say I’m pretty sure you’re only remembering half the story.
Ah yes, I see this is all foreshadowing. I remember now the other half of the story! Greased Chong was apparently what stuck with me about it.