Cautionary tale about ancient memories, lie detectors, the accusations against Kavanaugh

By Dan Calabrese —— Bio and Archives September 18, 2018

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I remember something very clearly. It was from many years ago. I’ve often thought back on it. When I was a kid, my parents’ brought home a small TV that looked like a space helmet. I think my dad won it as part of a sales contest at work. They put it upstairs in their room and sometimes for whatever reason we would go up there and watch TV on the black-and-white space helmet instead of watching it on the color TV downstairs in the living room.

There is one thing I very distinctly remember watching upstairs in their room. The Tigers had a rookie pitcher they called up from the minors, and his name was Pat Underwood. They chose a date when he would make his first major league start. In what was either an amazing coincidence or a shameless publicity stunt, they chose to start Pat Underwood against the Toronto Blue Jays on a night when the Blue Jays’ starting pitcher was a guy named Tom Underwood. Pat Underwood’s brother. For nine innings, the Underwood brothers dueled in a close game, finally won by the rookie Pat Underwood as the Tigers managed to take home a most unusual 1-0 victory. And I remember clear as day watching this game in the upstairs bedroom of my parents – on that space-helmet TV – in our house on Oakridge in Royal Oak. I can even tell you the exact spot where I was sitting in my parents’ bedroom in our house on Oakridge in Royal Oak. There is just one problem: That cannot have happened. Pat Underwood’s major league debut, in which he pitched against his brother Tom, was on May 31, 1979. My parents sold that house in 1978, and we moved about a half-mile away to another house on 12 Mile Road. By the time the battle of the Underwoods took place, we no longer lived in the house on Oakridge. I cannot possibly have watched this game there.

My memory tells me I did. But factual history says I couldn’t have. By the way, another thing I remember clear as day is watching Game 7 of the 1991 World Series in the living room of that same house, and this of course is memorable because Jack Morris pitched an astonishing 10-inning shutout to lead the Twins to a 1-0 win over the Braves. I remember the TV sitting in the corner next to the fireplace while I watched the game. By October 1991, no one in my family even lived in Royal Oak anymore, not even me, as I had moved over to Canton Township on the west side of town where I had taken a job in my early post-college years. I did not watch that game in the living room of the Oakridge house, although my memory recalls clear as day that I did. The human mind is capable of producing memories that do not line up with fact. Often we don’t even realize we “remember” these fictions because the “memories” abide for decades in our subconscious. Sometimes we realize that we think we have these memories. In some cases we never consciously realize it. Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser remembers that he assaulted her in the early 1980s. There is no physical evidence. There are no corroborating witnesses. There is no one who remembers her mentioning it at the time. There is nothing in Brett Kavanaugh’s known personal history to suggest any pattern of behavior consistent with this. But she “remembers” it. Clear as day. She even reportedly passed a lie detector, which means that she believes it. Memories are tricky things.