Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - Family

I had the disadvantage of having grown up in a functional family. You hardly hear those mentioned these days, probably because they seem to be endangered. Who knows how rich and famous I'd be today if my parents had left me on a park bench at an early age and I had been raised by pigeons or squirrels. I'm sure they were tempted but they reared me to early adulthood and never even complained much.

The closest I came to pain and agony in my childhood was supplied happily by my brothers and sister. The first couple years of life were grand. I liked being an only child and I thought I was doing a good job at it but suddenly another child appeared. I was just getting used to him when the next one came and finally our sister came on the scene. This left me as the oldest of the brood, a position which I learned to rue. In those distant days before the term sibling rivalry raised it's ugly head, we loved each other while trying in any way we could think up to kill or maim any thing small, moving and related.

Being the oldest, I learned early that I was responsible for the behavior of the younger members of the brood. My sister (the only female of the bunch and the youngest) could play my father like a violin. When she got caught smoking corn silk in a toy corn cob pipe, somehow it became my fault. I always got paired with her so I could watch over her, which was fine, except that that when she paired up my younger brothers. It resulted in a match not unlike pairing Ivan the Terrible with Captain Kidd.

On one occasion, I spent the morning with my little sister down in the orchard. We built this really neat little grass hut under an apple tree and were playing house in it when we heard a war whoop and were attacked by wild Indians. This might have been fun and a good time had by all except for the fact that the "Wild Indians" shot flaming arrows into our grass hut. I not only had to rescue my sister, I had to put out the fire and then hide the evidence of what had occurred since I knew who would be blamed.

These two middle brigands were incredibly creative and curious individuals. They decided to experiment one day and see if a cat placed in a paper bag and dropped out of a second story window would still land on its feet in spite of not being able to see where it was going because of the bag. I became part of the experiment when I came walking up our driveway, I observed them leaning out of the upstairs bedroom window holding a paper bag. It dawned on me as to what was afoot when the bag shook and emitted a loud yowl. As I ran towards the house, they released the bag and its unhappy cargo. Like a true super hero or just the oldest kid who knew he'd catch it if the little ones killed the cat, I made a running dive and in true Willie Mays fashion, I made the greatest catch ever seen by mortal man. The cat was not impressed with my efforts, clawed his way through the bag and up one side of me and down the other, ran off into the safety of the nearby woods and didn't return for several days. He never trusted another paper bag as long as he lived.

At family reunions these days, we sit, remember the good old days and wonder how we survived childhood. That's what families do and as battered and scarred as some of us are, we're still a family.

Thought for the week--The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. --Lucille Ball

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Whittle12124@yahoo.com