In defense of Dr Carson, things that happened a long time ago did, in fact, happen a long time ago.

Case in point: when I was in high school, I got stabbed. In the upper arm, of all places. It was some 35 years ago, but there’s much I recall with apparent clarity: the knife itself, the events preceding the act, the appearance of the wound right after the knife was withdrawn, which class I’d just gotten out of (English), the faces of the people who helped me to the nurse’s office, and the blood on my shirt after we’d gotten there.

I also recall that, at the time, I knew exactly who’d stabbed me…I’d been facing him when it happened. But now, three and a half decades later, that certainty about who’d done it is simply gone. I can no longer put a definite face on that figure. So, in other words, I *don’t* know who stabbed me, even though I used to know. How exactly does information like that get lost when so much else is retained?

Don’t get me wrong, when I guess about who it probably was, I come down to one person. (Surprisingly enough, back then I didn’t have hordes of people trying to kill me.) But–and you might be able to guess this–I can no longer put a name to that person. Case dismissed.

So when Carson says there are details missing from some of his 50 year old memories, I’m inclined to cut him some slack. Doesn’t oblige anyone else to do the same, of course, which could cost him in the weeks and months ahead.