Toady

In high school, I was asked to be on a panel (at church). Our topic was "sex", and we were to talk about what we thought of Sex Education, and how we were taught about it, ourselves. I asked Mommy to refresh my memory, how did she teach us about it? She said that we had goldfish and hamsters to observe (of course, we also observed that they would EAT their young!). She went on to say that when I (the youngest of five children) was two years old, Linda (the eldest) had asked her if she was going to have another baby? She had said, "No. Why?" Linda answered her, "Well, whenever someone is two, you have another baby!"

I remember a night when I was five, Mommy came into our bedroom (shared by Linda, Marty and I) and said, "I'm going to have another baby." Linda immediately threw the covers over her head. Marty was very excited. I don't remember what my reaction was - maybe a little of both. (This came right about at the time that I was saying to my siblings and the neighbor kids, "I'm the baby of the family... I'm the last one!" and Mommy said she was thinking to herself, "Oh no, you're not.")

Months later, Carl was born. He was a cutie pie - kicking his legs like a little frog when having his diaper changed, which earned him the nickname "Toady". I don't think I was ever jealous of him or the attention that he got from Mommy, we were all used to sharing. Despite Marty's theory - that each of us had animosity toward (her words were "didn't like") the sibling that immediately followed us (... hey!), because they took being "the baby" away from us, but then we liked the one that came after them, because it was like a form of retaliation, as they took "being the baby" away from our own usurper - I loved my little brother.

I felt a real responsibility in making sure that he was safe. I had a terrible nightmare in which we were in the boat on the lake, Carl fell out and just disappeared under the dark water. I woke up feeling a deep sense of dread that something bad would happen to him.

I always tried to watch out for him. I felt especially anxious when he developed a love of fishing and would spend hours down at the pier. I admired his dedication to it, but worried he would fall off of the pier and drown. I spent as much time down there with him as I could, but did leave him from time to time to go and fetch him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a fresh canteen of cold Kool-aid.

He was quite a tree climber, but not so good, initially, with climbing back down. He would climb up as high as he could go, then send Janet into the house to get someone to help him back down. She would come in from outside, and start watching TV or something. Eventually, someone would say, "Where's Carl?" And she would nonchalantly reply, "Oh, he's up in a tree. He needs someone to get him down." There he would be, patiently waiting (what else could he do?)

He occupied the bottom bunk of the boys' triple-decker bunk bed in the room shared by all three boys. He looked up to the big brothers, though they may have scarred him - you've already read about the bum/birthday story - by, when crossing a train track, holding their hands over his eyes and exclaiming, "The train's coming! It's gonna hit us! Aaaaah!" He was a good sport, though, and seemed unaffected.

He became an Eagle Scout, surviving Philmont. He became an Army Ranger, surviving survival training. He became a fine man. He made us proud.

He became a husband, then a father of four wonderful, beautiful kids.

Now he and his family are going through a dreadfully trying time - one of a parent's worst nightmares. I struggle with the fact that there is nothing that can be done by family to comfort them. All we can do is support them with our love, and pray for them. Pray for God to give His comfort and peace, to calm them and relieve their stress and worries, and to sustain them throughout this ordeal.

We're here for you.

I love you, little brother.

The "Real" Santa Claus

When we were little, we knew that the "real" Santa came to SEARS. We knew this because; (1) we went to see him and sat on his lap to tell him our secret desires (he was a very believable character - an older gentleman, not some young fellow in a cheap, fake beard - all of those other street-corner-Santas were just his "helpers"), (2) we rode in his rocket sled (how could they have faked that?!), (3) all of our toys were selected from the SEARS WISH BOOK catalog (so who better than the SEARS Santa would have access to that?), and (4) because Marty told me he was (she was older and wiser, so she should know).

Oh, sure, I had heard Mommy mention her SEARS credit card, or how she had to pay the SEARS bill. I thought that it only made sense that she should trust the store, and her credit account, to the place whose own special customer was the big guy himself.

When I grew older and was in school, I started to hear lies like, "It's your parents".  Though I would nod in agreement, as if to say, "of course I knew that", I secretly dismissed these stories, and  those misguided ones who told them. I suspected that, if they believed that kind of thing, that Santa wasn't real, then there was no hope of them getting anything from him for Christmas. Would parents leave presents unwrapped or contained in garbage bags when we knew they had wrapping paper close at hand? I think not!

I got concrete evidence of his existence one Christmas. Marty told me that she got up in the middle of the night, Christmas Eve, to go to the bathroom. She heard something down the hall, near the Christmas tree, and even thinks she caught a glimpse of him, herself! Just as sure as I knew that the movie "Miracle on 34th Street" was a true story, and that when he started to speak Dutch to that little girl, and sang "Sinterklass kapoentje... " - well, they must have convinced Santa to go to Macy's as well as SEARS - I knew that she was telling me the truth, and that Santa was real, as I had known, all along.

Santa's Rocket Ship/Sled at Sears - 1967

(photo from the LSUS Archives & Special Collections)

Me and Marty on Santa's lap, at Sears