November 30, 2020

My younger brother, Frank, is celebrating his 69^th birthday today.  

I always believed I conjured Frank because I wished for a baby brother when I blew out the candles on my cake on my 8^th birthday.  I wanted the baby to be a boy because I already had my sister, Karen, and thought it would be good to throw a brother into the mix.

He appeared eight months later, to the day.

What I didn’t know was that my mother was already pregnant with him when I made my wish.  Later on, my mother told me how astonished they were when they heard my wish and wondered if I knew their secret beforehand.

Since we were so far apart in age, I didn’t spend too much time in his circle, nor he in mine, but I have some distinct memories of some of his outstanding life events.  Outstanding to me, of course.  He might not like to be remembered this way, but I say it all with love.

He was a bit accident prone in his early years, so here goes:

One day we got back from a drive, and he flew from the car into the patio that was between the garage and the back door to the house.  He couldn’t wait to see our dog, Mig, whom we had chained to a pillar in the patio while we were gone because he had a propensity for jumping over the six-foot wall in search of female companionship, shall we say?

Mig was so excited to see Frank that he jumped up on him, caught a link of the chain on Frank’s front tooth, and ripped it out.  That was an emergency trip to the dentist. 

Whenever Mom left the house, I was in charge of babysitting my younger siblings. The minute she left, they turned into little monsters who paid no attention to anything I said.  Maybe I was too bossy?

One day as I waved goodbye to Mom in the taxi she was taking to do some shopping, I heard Karen yelling.  I ran in the house to find Frank choking on one jack he had grabbed from a set of jacks sitting on top of the television.  

I panicked and ran out to the front lawn, dragging Frank with me, yelling for help from any neighbor available.  There was no such thing as 9-1-1, and the Heimlich was in the distant future.  I figured I had killed my little brother, or rather let him die while he was in my care.

Someone came running – I think it was somebody from the White’s house across the street, but by the time that neighbor crossed the street, Frank had coughed up the jack on his own.

Another time, our neighbor, Karen H, who was about my age, got a brand-new bike for her birthday.  She was so happy and excited, and it was nice to see  because she had rather a tough home life.

The neighborhood kids were gathered around her, admiring the bicycle, when suddenly and without context or warning, Frank decided to stick his fingers into the chain on the bike. I don’t remember why he did that.  There might not be a “why”—just the impulse of a little kid.

Karen was beside herself (Frank and I like to use that phrase.) and begged us to not cut the chain no matter how long it took Frank to get his fingers out or how much he was suffering, and he was suffering.

Just then, some neighbor who had witnessed the chaos came running up with bolt cutters and cut the chain to release Frank’s Fingers. Gosh, is that a possible name for a fried chicken chain?

 It was a trip to the ER, but I don’t think his fingers were broken – just really, really smashed.  Only the chain on the bike was broken, and I’m sure Karen got in big trouble for “allowing” that to happen.

My parents owned a liquor store and Frank loved going there with them to hang out – not to drink, that came later – and to climb on the boxes of liquor that were stacked high to the ceiling in the storage area back of the store.  He loved climbing on them.  Have you guessed what happened next?

Frank was cavorting in the boxes when he fell from one way up high and broke his arm.  

Dad took him to the emergency room, and the doctor that set his arm was a dick-head, as I recall, and bawled out Frank for crying.  That part I’ll never forget.  Our not-very-emotional father was upset.

The next event occurred when Mom was hanging clothes on the line in the backyard. Karen  came out of the house and stated in the most casual way, “Frank just ran into the door in the hallway, he’s covered in blood, and I can’t see his eye.”  

Our mother was very excitable, to put it mildly, and that’s probably why Karen was so casually explaining what had happened to Frank, trying to mitigate Mom’s reaction.  Didn’t work.

We did first think Frank had lost an eye – yes, we’re dramatic – but it was merely a very bad cut over the eye that required a few stitches, and his eye was intact (we looked for it on the carpeting).

I can’t end this story without talking about The Brown Pants.  Frank had a little fetish when he was around three years old.  It was for his Brown Pants.  This is difficult to explain, but those pants were the only thing he ever wanted to wear.  I don’t recall if this fetish lasted for a year or only months.  Suffice it to say, if he could not have his Brown Pants, he threw a tantrum, yelling “brown pants, brown pants…”  I think Mom usually honored this desire of his, but after all, she had to wash the Brown Pants every so often.  

In 1964, when I was twenty-one, I moved home from Long Beach, where I had been living for several months, to prepare for a trip to Europe.   There were three of us girls driving to New York first and then boarding a ship to England.  I would be gone for three months.

In those days no one had air conditioning in their cars, so we  were leaving very early in the morning to beat the desert heat.  

I was packed and ready to go at 1:30 a.m., and the house was quiet, when here came Frank to say goodbye and wish me a good trip.  He was not quite thirteen at the time.  I was astonished, but so touched by that – especially because at that point in our lives we really did not communicate much. 

It obviously meant a lot to me, since I’ve never forgotten it.

As we grew older I realized that we had more in common than I ever knew.  We share a love of some books and movies, and television shows, and many, many jokes.  I guess you could say we have a similar sense of humor; i.e., sick.

Frank loves to play cards and other games and is very, very competitive, and while I love to play with him, I’m not quite so competitive.

We’ve grown closer over the years.  He always cheers me up and makes me laugh.  I know his friends love him, and so do I.

The End.