He was repeating the stories he grew up hearing. The old folks filled him up with them and he feels like he lived them.
My grandfather survived the Galveston hurricane of 1900. He told his children and grandchildren about it and I was so young that I feel like I was there.
The difference is I KNOW I was NOT in Galveston in 1900 but this guy doesn’t seem to know what happened to whom.
Good observation.