Barbra Streisand – "The Way We Were" (1973)

Memories light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored memories

Of the way we were

When I was in high school, my English teacher asked one of my fellow students what his favorite poem was.  He responded by quoting this piece of doggerel:

No matter how you shake and dance

The last drop always falls down your pants

That teacher – a very temperamental woman who didn’t cut her students a bit of slack when it came to classroom decorum – must not have heard what my fellow student said.  If she had, I can guarantee you she would have sent him to the principal’s office toot sweet.  

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This incident took place almost 50 years ago, but my memory of it is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.  

I’ve recounted it numerous times – most recently at a high school reunion, where half a dozen classmates who were in that same English class told me it simply could not have happened.

According to them, the smart-ass who I remembered reciting the lines quoted above couldn’t have done so because he had been kicked out of that class on the very first day of school.  As they recalled the incident, he had gotten out of his seat while the teacher was addressing the class to go sharpen his pencil.  When she told him to return to his seat immediately, he ignored her and proceeded to the pencil sharpener. 

Like I said, this teacher had a very short fuse when it came to student shenanigans.  She ordered the culprit out of her classroom, and he never returned.  (Presumably he was assigned to a different English class.)  

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It appears that I’m guilty of the memory error that psychiatrists and psychologists term “confabulation.”

Confabulation – which is defined as the creation of fabricated or distorted memories – is distinguishable from lying because there is no intent to deceive.  To the contrary, one who confabulates is absolutely certain that his or her memories are accurate.

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What’s the explanation for my vivid yet inaccurate memory from English class?

It’s possible that I made up the whole thing.  But I seriously doubt that’s the case.  (This is not some fuzzy memory with a lot of missing details.)

Also, where did I get the lines that I remember the student reciting?  I suppose it’s possible that I read those lines somewhere and somehow attributed them to my classmate, but that seems unlikely.

It’s also possible that the incident took place pretty much as I remember but involved a different teacher – or that it involved a different student.  If you knew the teacher and the student who I remember having the exchange I’ve described, you’d know why I find it hard to believe that I’m wrong about their identities.

But now that I think about it, there is one other classmate who might have recited the lines I quoted above.  It’s a very long shot that he was involved, but it’s not impossible.

I’m going to e-mail both the guy who I remember quoting the “shake and dance” poem and the other guy.  I’ll let you know what they say.

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To tell the truth, a big part of me still believes that I’m right about what happened in English, and that my classmates are wrong.  

Of course, people who confabulate are typically very confident about the accuracy of their memories despite the existence of evidence to the contrary.

I don’t know if confabulation is contagious, but I’m beginning to think that it might be.  There’s seems to be quite a bit of it going around right now.

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Barbra Streisand recorded today’s featured song for the 1973 movie of the same name, which starred her and Robert Redford.

Some critics thought Streisand sucked all the air out of the movie.  According to the Variety, “The overemphasis on Streisand makes [The Way We Were] just another one of those Streisand vehicles where no other elements ever get a chance.”

Roger Ebert admired Streisand’s performance, but thought the movie would have been better if her role has been less dominant vis-à-vis that of her leading man.  “The Redford character,” he wrote, “perhaps in reaction to the inevitable Streisand performance, is passive and without edges.”

That pretty much sums up Robert Redford’s acting career, doesn’t it?

I never saw the movie, but I just watched the trailer – which was more than enough for me.

Click here to listen to “The Way We Were.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon.