expectoration

[MScoleman at aol.com]

Paul Rosenberg mentions memory differences with his sister -- I just want to
say that in my family, we have huge gaps, chasms, in how we remember the same
events.  In a piece I wrote for FEMINIST ECONOMICS about blue collar work, I
mention at the beginning that my family had been on and off welfare when I was
a child.  When the article was published, I sent a copy to my mother who went
ballistic, calling me and chastizing me, telling me that we had never received
welfare.  For a bit, I was doubting my own sanity.  Then I called one of my
brothers and asked him if he remembered receiving welfare when he was a kid,
and he clearly remembered more or less the same things I did -- bulk food,
temporary assistance, all that.  Then we realized that since we had all grown
up and moved into more or less respectable careers our mother had rewritten
her personal history to match the careers of her grown children.  So, I
figured that with respect to my mother, nothing I publish from now till her
death will refer to receiving welfare -- who am I to burst her happy rewrite
at this late date.  maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com