Sandwich Kid, Part V

As we've been spending so much time with the situations arising among my husband's siblings lately, I've been thinking about my own family so much more.  Then I remembered I'd not finished my little series on being the middle child.

I cannot leave it unfinished because the "best" is yet to come!  (Writer pauses here for lots of laughter within.)  Click on each number here to read Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

You've heard the phrase, "save the best for last," haven't you?  I think that's what my parents thought when younger brother, Brad, came along.  My assessment is highly prejudiced, however, so I ask him and my readers to take this post with a grain of salt.  You'll see why in a minute.

L-R:  Me, Mom, and Brad (one month)

Brad was born when I was eight years old.  My older brother had married when I was six.  I had enjoyed two years of bliss with my status as the only child.  Now, it was gone in a flash!

There was crying, wailing, little sleeping with this unhappy, colicky little one in the house.  Later, the pediatrician determined his discomforts were all caused by enlarged tonsils and adenoids which couldn't come out until he was six!  Sounded like an eternity to me.

Finally, he began to grow into what I thought was a human being.  I learned quickly that toddlers can move rapidly through your things.  Things would go missing from my room.  I'd find them in the strangest places -- bathrooms, behind the sofa, under the dining table, inside cupboards.

The worst was yet to come -- he kept growing and growing and growing.  Pretty soon he was in school and friends the same size and age were invading the house.  By this time, I'm in my teens and don't want them around.  According to my parents, the playmates were good for Brad so they would stay.

Then he became a teenager interested in all things automotive, both under and over the hood.  Fortunately, he wasn't yet old enough to drive, but he wanted car magazines and books.  Always with the borrowing of money!  How was a non-working individual going to pay me back?  He didn't!

Despite my best efforts as his big sister to get him in trouble and keep him in hot water with Mom, Brad always managed to find his way out of trouble.  Many nights were spent in my bedroom with the door closed with him sharing with me what he'd been doing that night, and his daring me to tell Mom.  He knew I'd tattled on him many times and he was very cautious as he grew older to make sure I kept my mouth shut.  Now I've figured out I could have charged him for my secrecy.

I could tell you more but I don't want to bore you.  However, Brad grew into a very responsible and successful man married with a lovely family.  He's now enjoying being a grandpa and looking forward to another on the way.

Writer's Disclaimer:  Despite what I've written about our time growing up, separated by years on both sides of me, I love my brothers very much.  Currently, we are 80, 66 and 57, and not only are we separated by years, we are separated by 2,000 plus miles.

Recent events in my husband's family have made me aware just how precious life and family are with respect to who we are and who we become in this ever-evolving thing we call life.  I have taken much for granted over the years, including my brothers.  I hear God calling me to change that attitude into one of being more constant about contact with them and letting them know I care for and love them.

Q4U:  What about you do you have some family or even friends with whom you've grown distant?  Why not think about drawing a little closer in the coming weeks?  It only takes a little effort on our part -- that's all it costs!

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn
proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you.
Keep company with him and learn a life of love.
Observe how Christ loved us.
His love was not cautious but extravagant.
He didn't love in order to
get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.
Love like that.  

~~ Ephesians 5:1-2

With Joan today at The Grace Cafe

The Sandwich Kid, Part IV

Procastination, reluctance, dread, guilt -- all of these have had a hand in my getting back to my installments on being a middle child.  You might remember reading Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Each of the reasons I've listed are due in part to the fact that as the middle child between two brothers, one 14 years older and the other eight years younger, sooner or later you must know that I had to find ways to get even with them.  You know you were expecting this, right?

My brother Eugene (Bubba) (R) and his
best friend, Clyde (Buzz)

I'll start with things occurring related to my older brother.  I must have been about four years old at the time.  I knew his room was off limits.  He was about 18 and graduating high school soon.  In this photo, he's the good looking one on the right.

One afternoon I became curious as to why I wasn't supposed to be in his room.

Mama was busy and I could hear her in the kitchen.  So I tiptoed in and began to look around.  Nothing was of great interest to a four year old.  Until I spied bright colors on the corner of what looked like a piece of paper peeking out from under his bed.

And there it was!  Shiny and glossy.  Beautiful pictures, beautiful ladies!  I had to share them with Mama.  I grabbed as many as my hands would hold and ran to the kitchen.

"Mama, mama!  Look what I found under Bubba's bed!  Magazines with pretty ladies all over the pages.  They're all so beautiful."

Photo credit

Mama wheeled around and took one look at what I was holding.  Imagine her horror when she saw the masthead on the stack of magazines I was sharing with her.

I use this simple image to the right to maintain at least a modicum of tastefulness here.  :)

Well, the worst wasn't over.  Of course, Mama just had to confront Gene when he came home from school that afternoon.

And the worst was when he stopped me in the hallway and to down close to my face.

"If you ever snoop around in my room again or show mama something you've found because you can't stop snooping, I'll kill you!"

Well, you could say he had my attention at this point.  I refused to let him see me cry so I backed across the hall and pushed my way into my room and quietly closed the door.

Already I believed firmly that God's words were to be honored:

And that's about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair.

Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that,

and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure. 

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (The Message) 

The Sandwich Kid, Part III

In my last installment of The Sandwich Kid, I introduced you to my younger brother, Brad.  He was for all of us a life changing experience.  Brad didn't then, and still doesn't now, know the meaning of the word "calm," "slow," or "take it easy."  Always on the go, something always cooking, Brad is a man of many talents and uses them constantly.

Did I mention that he was our dad's pride and joy?  You see Brad was Dad's first boy born to him.  Our older brother, Gene, and Dad had a tremendous relationship.  Gene always referred to Dad as his father too, but Gene was the product of mama's first marriage.

So, Brad comes along when Dad is 53.  Yes, you read that correctly -- age 53!  I remember Dad telling everyone that God had blessed him like Abraham, in his old age.  For a long time, eight-year old me wondered what that meant.

God visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; God did to Sarah what
he promised: Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age,
and at the very time God had set.  Abraham named him Isaac.
When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded.

Gen. 21:1-4 (The Message)
 

Perhaps this is behind Brad's call to the pulpit and preaching?  Not for us to know but it was something Dad said over and over.  And now I understand the blessing Dad saw in this baby boy.

Of course, being the only girl between two boys and not at all happy about this second one, it hurt my feelings to hear my daddy talking so proudly about this wrinkled, wiggling, red-faced from crying baby boy! 

And this baby boy began to grow . . .  yep, somebody was feeding him and it was taking! 

By 1959, at age five, Brad was firmly ensconced in his boy persona -- a rough and tumble cowboy lived out under the sycamore tree, while the house was filled with vroom, vroom! and all forms of cars and trucks.  Not to mention, a Lionel train lived under his bed.

Not only was my life being impacted by a five-year old brother, our older brother had his own son, now seven years old.  Where had all the girls gone?

I had no interest in the games boys played.  I liked my dolls, roller skates, Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables.

Whose idea was it that I'd be stuck in the middle of so many boys?  What could I do but try to exist?  Well, I made the best of it, as you'll see in the next installment of my life as a middle child.

I hope you'll come back and continue this journey with me.

The Sandwich Kid, Part II

Last time in Part I of my story as the middle child, you met my older brother, Gene.  For all time, my hero, someone I looked up to, and yes, even idolized at points in time.  Dreamed dreams of the romantic kind about his friends.  After all, there was 14 years difference in our ages (writer smiles here).

Me, mom and Brad (1954-55)

And then along came Brad, my younger by eight years little brother.  I remember the night he was born -- the disruption in my life began right then and there.

Awakened by my folks in the middle of the night, carted off by my uncle to his house, my impression of this little boy could not have been worse!

Morning came with dad arriving at my aunt and uncle's home beaming from ear to ear.  A man with two daughters from a previous marriage and a little girl eight years old, dad felt like God had blessed him like Abraham in his old age.  I truly couldn't see that this was such a big deal.

In those days (for those of you much younger), newborns and their mamas stayed in the hospital almost a week before coming home.  But come home they eventually did.

Brad didn't sleep.  He cried like a banshee in the night, all night.  And this is not just a child-like opinion.  He had medical issues not clear at the time -- enlarged tonsils and adenoids, which couldn't be removed until a few years had passed.  This meant he couldn't nurse well and breathing while lying down was difficult.  My parents would sit up holding him, while he cried, just so he could breathe and calm down.

Needless to say, I wasn't pleased to hear the words "shh, baby's sleeping" each time Brad slipped into slumber.  Mad would best describe my reaction.  Add to that the sweet things by everyone who came by to visit -- he's such a boy, so cute, so sweet, adorable, precious -- and I became totally disgusted with this crying, wrinkled little being.

Enter bad behavior!  Not that I was the perfect child, but what I'm about to describe was totally out of character for me.  I had heard enough and decided to do something about it.

Mom and dad had a beautiful suite of mahogany bedroom furniture.  In the beautiful wood on top of the nightstand, I proceed to carve with the point of a ballpoint pen, "Shhhhhhhh, baby's sleeping!!!!!!!"

Oh, the punishment rendered was painful but my satisfaction at having sent my message was delicious.  Imagine my horror when my parents never had the top of the nightstand repaired.  Yes, when we cleared out the house that last time after mom's death in 2001, there was my message for all the world to see.

Don't forget to tune back in soon for Part III of The Sandwich Kid!

Photo credit:  Bargain John's Antiques


Linking up on Tuesdays in March with Write it, Girl.  Come on over and check out whose writing!

The Sandwich Kid, Part I

Not focusing on food today.  Nope, not at all.  The reference to "sandwich" is related to my status as the middle child of three -- two boys and a girl.  Being sandwiched between two boys isn't easy, but less so in my family. 

Typical of families growing up in the 1930s-1950s, we were three typical kids.  But did you look at the span of the decades above?  Yes, the photo to the right is NOT of my two brothers and me.  It's a "borrowed" photograph -- we're separated by so many years on each end there are no photos of the three of us together as youngsters.

My "big" brother at age 13

My older brother was 14 when I was born.  Often when he was taking care of me while our dad was sick, people would mistake him for my father.  At times I wonder if that was an embarrassment to a teen aged boy.  Or maybe he was thrilled to be thought older.

Gene had been in a single parent setting for almost half his almost 13 years when our mom married dad.  And then within a little less than a year, here's a baby in the house, and a girl besides!

I have only foggy memories of the early years of my life with Gene.  The years seemed to go by without my keeping record of anything until I was about five.  And then I remember so vividly the image of Gene and his best friend, Buzz.  I have a fantastic photograph in my mom's remembrances of the three of us standing together on their high school graduation day.

Then my big brother got married and left home to raise his own family, presenting me with my first nephew at the ripe old age of 6!  Who knew a little girl could be an aunt!  And he kept producing those little boys, one every two years until he had four of them!  Boys, ick!

During all this reproductive activity, my mom would be pregnant at least four times and each time lost that precious life, sometimes in the first trimester but once she carried her little one until six months.

Me with mom holding Brad (1955)

In 1954, a few months after my eighth birthday, my parents blessed me with another brother!  I thought God had forgotten how to make little girls. 

Next time, I'll tell you more about Brad, and then we can talk more about being that middle child between two brothers so far away on each side of me chronologically.


Photo credit:  Blue Bear Nursery