From:
I don’t recall all the details. But my memory of my uncle’s ranch in Wisconsin is a mixture of nostalgia (electric fences, recalcitrant goats, mischievous cousins) and horror (12,000 chickens stacked on top of one another, electric fences, potent winters–and oh, the smells!). It’s an uncomfortable combination.
What is it about our memory that wants to filter out contradictions and ambivalence? Why do we find it easier to live in extremes of positive and negative experience?
I can’t help but watch this play out in our collective memories, as well. To complicate our belief of particular history is anathema. To avoid resetting our mythology of identity is defensible with our lives.
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
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