60's

The cliche says "if you remember the 60's you probably weren't there". Now that the 60's generation are in their 60's it takes on a new meaning.  In my case I have a better long term memory than ever before and my short term memory which was absent for a year has been rebuilding itself so in some ways I've been able to see the workings of memory up close and personal.  

A few times recently I've come across people I knew over 40 years ago and got a quizzical look when I greeted them by name.  Funerals seem a likely place to reconnect to long lost friends and acquaintances.
That is something else that increases with age.  It is not so bad when going to a funeral of someone who has had a full and rich life. But ....

Over the last half dozen years I have reconnected with friends from decades ago, some as long as 50 years and school days.  In most cases this has been a pleasant encounter and catching up on the intervening years has in some cases been very surprising.
As in some of the posts below memory is fungible.  We remember what we need to from a very subjective point of view so that by any empirical measure our 'memories' are fiction with the clothing of fact - or faction.
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Which bring me to fiction - what is it?  In the political sphere it is the daily 'debate' which fills our airwaves and newspapers and pretends to be a reflection of what is happening in the real world.
On the other hand the fact that we quote Shakespeare, Dickens, Checkov, Tolstoy, Dostoevesky, Roth, Jacobson and other 'fiction' writers to illustrate some truth of our lives indicates something of the truth embedded in fiction. Meanwhile the stories we tell ourselves about our own experiences and circles have a fictional element that is informed by our own needs and desires.