I’m starting to get the character profiles built out on the site now, and there’s one item that may seem like an inconsistency: Jamie’s birth date. In the Legends Lost universe, it’s set as November 10, 1974. Dedicated fans may note that this date seems inconsistent with a comment that Amanda makes in the third season episode, “The Wrong Way Home.”
To be clear: I’m aware of the inconsistency. Here are the reasons why I think the 1974 birth date better suits anyway.
- First, although Amanda states that Jamie is eight in “The First Time,” we later see him having a birthday in November 1983 (“Saved By the Bells”). Presumably, this is his ninth birthday — since that would be next — which would be consistent with a birth date in 1974.
- Second, Jamie is established as being two years behind Phillip in school. In the State of Virginia, the cutoff date for school attendance is September 1. Thus, if Jamie were born in November 1975, he would actually be three years behind Phillip in school. However, a November 1974 birth date would indeed place him two school years behind Phillip.
For the record, I was in the school year between Phillip and Jamie, even though I really was born in 1975. There were some weird circumstances. I originally started school in the same class as Jamie, but I was advanced prior to Scarecrow and Mrs. King‘s initial television run.
- A November 1974 birth date places him about eighteen months younger than Phillip. This is believable for brothers — and, in fact, could be a partial in-universe explanation for why they sometimes treated each other like something closer to peers than many sibling pairs do at those same ages*.
- A number of other time frame comments in the canonical series are also inconsistent with a November 1975 birth date. However, nearly all of them are neatly resolved if his birth date is moved to November 1974.
- Greg Morton was born in 1973. Especially during the fourth season, Jamie’s physical development was a little more advanced than the typical 11-12 year old, which makes sense given that Greg was actually 13-14. Had the series continued to a fifth or sixth season, that inconsistency would have gotten stronger. Making Jamie 12-13 years old during that season brings it more in line.
The kicker, for me, came from real life. During my second marriage, I had a stepson who was born in November, and because of that I got into the habit of actually using the calendar year after he was born whenever I did date arithmetic. This also lined up with same-grade peer comparisons. While I was usually pretty clear about the correct calendar year if I was giving exact dates, I can easily see how someone might use my statements to assume my stepson had actually been born the next calendar year: date arithmetic would be accurate for all but the last few weeks of any given calendar year.
It’s not a difficult stretch to imagine that Amanda may have inadvertently advanced the birth year when speaking to Lee in “The Wrong Way Home.” She was giving the dates by calendar year, not month-day-year, in that scene; and if she developed the same habit I did, then she might very well use the approximate date of 1975 versus the actual date of 1974.
While it’s not a difficult stretch, I will admit that it is a stretch. On balance, though, since the 1974 birth date works so much better in so many places, I’ve decided to go ahead and run with it.
* Despite the fact that my own brother and I are only twenty-eight months apart, my grade advancement meant we were three years apart in school. We were adults before we truly began treating each other as agemates.