Working on my "Through the Years" project for Facebook and looking at all of my childhood photos made me think back to what it was like growing up in Dunbar and having a younger (by one year) brother to be my partner in crime.
My brother has red hair. No one in our immediate family has red hair. So, when we were kids I used to tell my brother that he wasn't really my brother and that his "real" family was looking for him. I'd say, "You don't look like us!" (He didn't have an ounce of fat on his body until he discovered alcohol and cigarettes after the birth of his 6th child.) He would cry and tell Mom who would re-assure him that some great great great grandparent had red hair. He got his "so there" when he produced a bunch of red-haired babies.
My brother and I shared a room when we were kids because we lived in a mobile home with only two bedrooms. (When I turned 12, I got the bedroom and my brother was banished to sleeping on a pull out sofa and having all of his toys and personal belongings kept in a storage cupboard in the living room.) When we shared a room, he had the top bunk bed. I would wait until he fell asleep and then I'd reach up along the wall and pinch, grab and/or poke whatever part of him I could reach, scaring the crap out of him. If that didn't work, I'd wait until he fell asleep and then take both of my feet and kick the top bunk really hard, propelling him upwards. He retaliated by waiting until one night while I was sitting on the floor playing barbies then he kneeled on the top bed and peed on me and my barbies. I stopped kicking the bed and scaring him after that.
The top bunk was off limits to me. I was always the neat kid and my brother was the messy one. I hated that he didn't make his bed so if I was alone in the room, I'd climb up and make his bed for him, which would make him mad because it meant I violated his sacred space. So one night, he came in and caught me on the top bunk making his bed. He yanked me off of the bed so hard I fell and dislocated my shoulder. He got quite the "switching" (I grew up in rural PA where the biggest fear you had was getting "switched" for being bad. This meant that a very young branch of a tree would be skinned and then you got it across your bare hiney.) when we got back from the hospital.
When I was about 10 or so, my brother got a BB gun for Christmas. I was jealous. I was a bit of a tom boy. I loved my barbies but I also loved matchbox cars, building things, tearing things apart, riding mini-bikes, etc. So, I begged my brother to let me use his gun. He said ok and went to set up "targets" for me. The targets were empty soup cans from the trash. He lined them up on tree trunks in the back yard. Well, my aim wasn't that good nor my patience. To try to scare him, I shot at the target while he was still setting it up. I ended up shooting him in the head. Luckily, it didn't really hurt him seriously, but I did get a nice little "switching" for that one.
I used to make my brother play barbies with me. He hated it. But, I didn't really have any other play mates so whenever I'd catch him doing something he shouldn't be doing (like looking at the rolled up PLAYBOY my dad kept hidden behind the toilet tank in the bathroom), I'd blackmail him into playing barbies. He had his own set of dolls which he kept hidden in the closet. His man doll was "Gary" and "Gary" would always hang out with Barbie when Ken wasn't around. I'm still not sure if the baby Barbie had was Gary's or Ken's.
My brother and I shared a room when we were kids because we lived in a mobile home with only two bedrooms. (When I turned 12, I got the bedroom and my brother was banished to sleeping on a pull out sofa and having all of his toys and personal belongings kept in a storage cupboard in the living room.) When we shared a room, he had the top bunk bed. I would wait until he fell asleep and then I'd reach up along the wall and pinch, grab and/or poke whatever part of him I could reach, scaring the crap out of him. If that didn't work, I'd wait until he fell asleep and then take both of my feet and kick the top bunk really hard, propelling him upwards. He retaliated by waiting until one night while I was sitting on the floor playing barbies then he kneeled on the top bed and peed on me and my barbies. I stopped kicking the bed and scaring him after that.
The top bunk was off limits to me. I was always the neat kid and my brother was the messy one. I hated that he didn't make his bed so if I was alone in the room, I'd climb up and make his bed for him, which would make him mad because it meant I violated his sacred space. So one night, he came in and caught me on the top bunk making his bed. He yanked me off of the bed so hard I fell and dislocated my shoulder. He got quite the "switching" (I grew up in rural PA where the biggest fear you had was getting "switched" for being bad. This meant that a very young branch of a tree would be skinned and then you got it across your bare hiney.) when we got back from the hospital.
When I was about 10 or so, my brother got a BB gun for Christmas. I was jealous. I was a bit of a tom boy. I loved my barbies but I also loved matchbox cars, building things, tearing things apart, riding mini-bikes, etc. So, I begged my brother to let me use his gun. He said ok and went to set up "targets" for me. The targets were empty soup cans from the trash. He lined them up on tree trunks in the back yard. Well, my aim wasn't that good nor my patience. To try to scare him, I shot at the target while he was still setting it up. I ended up shooting him in the head. Luckily, it didn't really hurt him seriously, but I did get a nice little "switching" for that one.
I used to make my brother play barbies with me. He hated it. But, I didn't really have any other play mates so whenever I'd catch him doing something he shouldn't be doing (like looking at the rolled up PLAYBOY my dad kept hidden behind the toilet tank in the bathroom), I'd blackmail him into playing barbies. He had his own set of dolls which he kept hidden in the closet. His man doll was "Gary" and "Gary" would always hang out with Barbie when Ken wasn't around. I'm still not sure if the baby Barbie had was Gary's or Ken's.
My brother noticed that our man dolls were "missing" some major pieces of anatomy. So, he made little wee-wees for our man dolls out of play doh. The only thing-- when you'd make the man doll sit, the playdoh willies would pop off. So, my brother would then use modeling clay as little ding dongs, but then when you made the man dolls sit, the thingamajigs would get all twisted and smushed. Eventually, he took some crazy glue from dad's tool box and glued the playdoh doodads on the dolls. Our man dolls had permanent woodies.
Later on, when we got to middle school and high school, I became the brainy fairly popular one and he chose to be the C average underachiever most likely to work in a minimum wage job. He would always act like he didn't know me because he didn't like people comparing us. So, one day, a friend told me that my own brother was making fun of me behind my back to look cool. I waited until he was with a bunch of his friends and walked up to him and gave him a big hug and told him in front of all of his friends that he was the best brother a girl could have. He turned red and called me all kinds of names. I got my revenge and he stopped making fun of me at school.
Sadly, once I went away to college, my brother and I drifted apart. The drift started in high school when it became very evident that we weren't on the same path. I would always encourage him to do better, be better and get the h*ll out of town as soon as he could. He had so much potential. He was really good at building things, fixing things and knew more about cars than anyone. But, he didn't care about any of those things. I went away to college and he got a girl pregnant. His life became a long line of child support payments, dead-end minimum wage jobs, unpaid bills, loans from our parents and even more kids with a couple of different women. He looks older than me now and there is no sign of the little boy who used to be my partner in crime and my ally against parents who embarrassed us too much, loved us too little and sometimes acted like we were nuisances instead of little kids trying to live a happy life.
When I go home, I see pieces of him in my nephews and celebrate their naughty sides, their creative sides and their individuality.
They are too young to know what they have and I hope they never ever forget what it's like to be a child. I hope they grow up to have great memories of one another.
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