"A lie told often enough becomes truth." —Vladimir Lenin

For the most part, over the course of those years, Evie and I seldom discussed the details of these stories with each other. If we discussed them at all, it would have been along this line, "Hey, Ev, remember that time we got mugged in Washington Square Park?"

To which she might reply, "Yeah, that was scary!"

Typically, that would have been the sum total of the discussion. Any mention of one of these stories between the two of us over the years would have consisted only of the memory

As it turned out, they are not. We each have our own version. In many instances, they are very similar—sometimes virtually identical. But in some cases our versions of these vignettes look like two totally different stories.

When we first discovered this phenomenon, we were discouraged. We felt it to be one or two degrees beyond troublesome; almost a deal-breaker, as far as our collaborative effort in writing the book. We asked ourselves, "How can we do this, if we can’t even agree on the details of what happened?" We knew each other well enough to be certain that our intentions were never to be dishonest or misleading, but that did not make the divergences easier to deal with.

At one point early on, one of us suggested that we hammer out the differences and combine the two versions. It took only a few minutes to figure out that was a bad idea. Neither of us was willing to compromise a bit. And why should we? Besides, all charm would be lost with a phony and boring milk-toast version. Simply put, we concluded that the very discrepancies that cropped up in our stories made the whole process fun for us, and hopefully interesting to our readers.

However, even after we got past this aspect of the book’s development,

In some cases, we concluded, the differences could be attributed to the degree to which one of us might not have actively participated in a given vignette. It was a simple fact, I was barely a player in some vignettes; while in others, Evie did not participate directly.

For instance, whenever I would engage a mugger in our building, Evie would remain safe (but worried) in our apartment. I could be several floors up or down, and all she could do was listen to me yelling like hell. In those cases, Evie was best able only to reflect on her concern for my safety, and parrot what few details I or others related to her afterward. So, for the most part, that would be the extent of the memory bank from which she could draw.

In still other instances, such as when Evie’s bank got robbed, because I was not actually present at the time, my version of events was limited to the things she and her co-workers told me. I am sure that in my mind, my version was the most correct version possible—but such was probably not the case. Quite likely my mind had jumped in and filled this memory vacuum with speculation and hearsay. Human nature always strives to make sense out of life, after all.

While this "vacuum filling" concept did help us to understand the reason for some of the discrepancies, it did not help with numerous others. Particularly troublesome were our conflicting accounts of events in which both of us mutually participated. The more we thought about it, however, the more plausible explanations we came up with.

For instance, it is likely in some cases one or both of use may have

Another possible cause for some of the disparities might have to do with the way humans tend to regard themselves centermost in every picture. For example, whenever most of us page through a family album, we always look for pictures of ourselves, particularly ones that make us look good (at least that’s what I do).

Also, along this same line, I think we all are tempted to embellish our role in life. For instance, when a person is asked about a major historical event that occurred during his lifetime, such as the assassination of President Kennedy, his first thoughts will likely go to his own personal experiences surrounding the event—where he was at the time, what he was doing, or whom he was with. We all tend to place ourselves in the middle of whatever is happening, because it makes us feel important. I think this factor might have played a significant role in Evie and I coming up with different versions of the same story—we were each viewing it from our own somewhat self-centered perspective.

On a much larger scale, this self-centering (or self-serving) phenomenon is what has produced various versions of recorded history. It is a fact that the recording of history was particularly troublesome prior to Gutenberg, and the advent of the printed page. For instance, kings in ancient cultures would hire scribes to handwrite how they wanted to be remembered. That highly-complimentary compendium would then be read over and over at public meetings until it was ground into the minds of the proletariat as absolute truth (or so the king hoped).
"A lie told often enough becomes truth." —Vladimir Lenin