As someone who's all too aware of the seeming immutability of memory and association, I'm often surprised when I experience instances that fly in the face of the principle. What do I mean? Well, if I got an item in, say, the '60s, I'm usually always reminded of the period and place in which I lived when I purchased it whenever I look at the thing, be it comic or toy.
But, sometimes, there are exceptions. A case in point is this set of WADE porcelain figures, which I've shown on the blog before. The YOGI BEAR figure was bought in 1970 or '71 and, naturally enough, I associate it in memory with where I was then living, which was the previous house to the one I now reside in.
Around 40 years passed before I decided to track down and acquire the remaining two HANNA-BARBERA figures in the set, HUCKLEBERRY HOUND and Mr. JINKS. Having bought them only in relatively recent years, you'd think I'd associate them with now, rather than the '70s, but surprisingly, such is not the case.
When I look at Huck and Jinks, I can't help but 'see' them in my old room of my former house, sitting alongside Yogi as if I owned all three pieces back then. They fit so well into that period that it's hard to separate them from it, and link them to the contemporary times in which they were purchased.
Another of life's little mysteries which I thought I'd share with you all here. After all, why should I be the only person who has to ponder such perplexities? Now you can all wrestle with it - and if you feel like commenting on the matter, be my guest.
5 comments:
Yeah know exactly what you mean,when I take out my plastron Supercar for a trip down memory lane, it's the early 1960,s again
And I,m kneeling in front of a coal fire and Mike Mercury is zooming past a volcano in Supercar.Must be a space time continuum sort of thing.
Yup, but in the case of Huck and Mr. Jinks it works in reverse. Instead of associating them with modern times and the house I now live in (which is when I bought them), I associate them with my previous room and house, yet I never saw or had them then. Odd.
Well, I don't see anything weird about it. We naturally associate related (or even just similar) items with each other. So, if I were to buy a toy or comic now, even if I never had it before, I might associate it with the house where I lived with my parents when I was a child. Or with my maternal grandparents' house, where we visited regularly. That is, maybe I never had a Huckleberry Hound toy, but I had a Yogi Bear one, and that's close enough to make a connection. Or, I never had Detective Comics #359, but I had #356 and #357. That kind of thing.
Similarly, I never saw Thunderbirds during its original run in the 1960's. But, when I saw reruns of it in the 1990's, it had a nostalgic appeal for me. It reminded me of Supercar and Fireball XL5, which I had seen when I was about five or six.
Also, even if you never had the Huckleberry Hound and Mr. Jinks figurines before, is it possible that you saw them on sale in a shop, or you saw them advertised in a magazine or comic book, and you remember wanting them?
I never had the Flintstones/Bedrock or Yogi Bear/Jellystone Park play sets, but I associate both with my late parents' living room, because I remember seeing them advertised in a Sears Wish Book (i.e., store catalog) during a Christmas season in the sixties.
Well, I knew they existed, TC, because the box said 'Yogi Bear & Friends' and was numbered #3. It also had illustrations of Huck & Mr. Jinks, but I never clapped eyes on the actual porcelain figures until I attempted to track them down on eBay. I get what you say, and agree completely, but there are exceptions to this natural association of one thing to another that you speak of. For instance, I naturally associate Yogi Bear with the '60s, because that's where I first saw him and had various toys of him. However, I didn't get the Wade Yogi figure until '70/'71 - and that's the period I connect it to - no doubt because that particular incarnation of merchandise didn't cross my path 'til the '70s, although it was issued in the early '60s. So, not acquiring Huck and Jinksy 'til the 21st century, you'd think that's the time and place I'd associate them with, more so than what I'd assume would be a natural secondary link to the '70s which is when I got the Wade Yogi. My point being that what should be the secondary link seems to be the primary one, and that seems just a bit odd to me.
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