Everything has Shrunk

Looking at the past, it seems certain things have shrunk. For example, I remember that the lot around my childhood home was at least the size of the Ponderosa in the old TV western, Bonanza. We had to start over again after we finished mowing it. The land must have covered two or three time zones., or at least that's how it seemed.

 Upon occasionally driving past the old place, I notice that the front yard is no more than a large postage stamp! Did somebody steal most of our yard? How can our minds trick us in such ways?

Shortly before our old elementary school was demolished, my brother and I paid a visit. Surprisingly, as we strolled through the halls and rooms, I could remember the paintings on the walls, the old wooden floors, and where I sat in each grade! Heck, I could even remember the names of the students who sat close to me and the teacher who accompanied each room. Yet, I had the impression that the entire building had shrunk considerably. I swear that back in the day the ceilings were higher, the halls were wider, and the desks were bigger. Of course, in those days I was smaller than I am today.

I began watching college basketball regularly in 1963 (Yes, smarty pants; TV existed back then). Occasionally I'll recall those contests, but my brain, acting as editor, has updated my memory. My brain tells me that those players from long ago were no different from the current athletes. In my mind, those earlier players now are as big as today's counterparts. They wore modern-day outfits and ran today's offensive sets.

However, recently I had a day of reckoning. On one of the local channels, they showed basketball clips from the early '60s. For the most part, the players were skinnier and shorter than today's players, and their basketball pants could serve today as underwear. In addition, those guys were running some kind of offense that no college would use today.

During childhood days even our town seemed huge. I remember going downtown with Dad to “pay the bills.” Back in those days, most of the stores were located there, and, of course, one didn't pay bills via computer. Those were the days before expressways, so all the major traffic snaked its way through the downtown section, making it seem as if our little town was a huge metropolis. I can remember Dad driving around the block numerous times, waiting for someone to leave his parking space for us.

At that time our seemingly large city had a population of 40,000, so it was not exactly Los Angeles or Chicago. At the time, the downtown buildings seemed like giants, but most of them were only two or three stories. The tallest building, if I remember correctly, had six stories, so it was far from being a skyscraper.

When I was a kid just about all the adults seemed like giants, although many of the women were 5'6” or less. There was one elementary teacher, however, who was shorter than many of her students. What she lacked in height she made up in girth, for she was built like a nose guard. The difference was this: nose guards aren't as mean as this particular teacher was. I would not be surprised to learn she ate kids for breakfast!

As adults, perhaps why we feel things from the past have shrunk is simply because as children, relatively speaking, most things were bigger than we were. Until I was nine or ten my older sister actually was bigger and stronger than I, and, of course, often she took advantage of that fact by wrestling me to the floor and pinning me down. Eventually, I grew enough to turn the tables, but then she squealed to Mom, so that was the end of it. (I'm still plotting my revenge!)

When it comes to shrinkage, one thing is not an illusion. Over the years I've lost 2 ½ inches in height! This is a normal event that happens to us all as we age. Over time, our bones and vertebrae and other such things compress. I bet the great basketball player, Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, is now not more than 7' 0” tall. As for me, at the rate I'm going, in ten more years I'll be a prime candidate to play a munchkin in a remake of The Wizard of Oz.

All this leads me to one conclusion. Memories, especially memories from long ago, should be taken with a grain of salt. As time goes by, our brains busily edit our memories, but not every brain edits an event in the same way. That's why my siblings and I do not always remember things in the same way. But don't listen to my sister; she really did wrestle me to the floor for several years, so she's guilty as charged!