Cartoon that pretty much sums up my relationship with my sister.For the record, I did go through a period of time when I was about 15 that I lifted weights. I think that lasted 10 minutes. I am built like my dad, large muscles over a sturdy frame. My sister was built like my dad ... on grow pills. She was at least three inches taller than he was. I was visiting her home in Greensboro and was about to sit down in a recliner when I saw the little table next to it had a broken strut. "Oh, when did that happen?" I asked, thinking it had something to do with the even better developed children she had. "Don't you remember?" she said, settling into the other recliner. "You threw it at me and broke it."
Like many baby-boomers, I lived through the sixties and seventies and I know it's possible to lose track of every little thing that happened to one in those colorful days. I may joke around with my friends and claim to be having " LSD flashbacks," but it's all talk. My sister, nine years older, made a big deal over my putative forays into counterculture. I say "putative" because I was a Young Republican during a time when it was not very popular, making me a pariah in my day. Not many drugs actually came my way, but neither did I escape their siren song. I did, however, roll my eyes as my sister sniffed and proclaimed she never did drugs, as she held a frozen daiquiri in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Doubtless you are imagining me in some rollicking (if infrequent) drug-induced fit throwing furniture at my defenseless and sober sibling. I didn't imagine that for one red second. My mind, still pretty sharp in those days, hurtled back to an incident in the early 1960s when we lived in Cincinnati. My sister had pushed me to my limit. As a child, I was pretty laid-back, albeit whiny. You could mess with my head all day long and just get your name strung out in several extra syllables and a penetrating nasal whinge. "Aaaaaeeeeeeeyyunnnnn!" Or, I might perhaps have recourse to our mother, whom I refered to as "my mother," much to my sister's consternation (but let's face it, when you have kids nine years apart, you're a different person by the time the second one comes along): "Maaaaaoooummmmm! Aaaeeyun isn't staying on her side of the caawaaar!" This, of course, cut no ice with our mother. One time she even got out of the car and walked home because she couldn't stand listening to us bicker in the back seat.
But in this case it was 1963 I was no more than nine years old, making my sister twice my age and twice my size. She was frequently left to babysit me and used that time to torture me in various ways: making me wash and dry the dishes when instructions were clearly left for us to divide that chore; creating unfair guessing games to humiliate me for her amusement; calling me names. And one night she just pushed me too far. I shoved the table. I didn't even shove it at her. I just had to take out my frustrations on something. I shoved a small drop-leaf table. I do not recall it breaking, but that just might be all those slaughtered brain cells from my counterculture past. Years later I recall one more incident where I pushed everything off the top of my dresser and she immediately accused me of throwing things at her. "I'm telling Mom," she said. I wish I had thrown them at her.
She did love me, though. She bought me presents, took me to movies, took me to fencing lessons and paid for them. She honed her mom-ing skills on me. She made birthday cakes for me and threw birthday parties - and then stepped in and made herself the center of attention. Years later I had friends who did the same things. Cindy would throw surprise birthday parties for me (I lost my appetite for birthdays early on, necessitating the surprise factor) and invite men she wanted to date. I'd come home from work and find my mother looking shamefaced. "What is it?" I'd ask. She'd moan, and then finally admit she'd been talked into another surprise birthday party after I had made her promise not to fall for it again. And Cindy was late ... again. I had wondered what all the idling cars were doing down the street. To this day I don't mind people knowing how old I am, but I hate birthdays. I'm 54, by the way.
If my sister were alive today (she isn't always speaking to me in my memory), I'd ask her why, if I'd broken the strut on that tiny table around 1963, it was not repaired, nor even looked as if it had been repaired in 1978 when she brought it up. It had been through at least two moves, if not four, and never been at least glued?! Was it thus as a constant reminder of my alleged violent temper?
No, it's just Aaaeeeeyyuuunnn messin' with my head again. Amazing she can still do it, and that I let her do it, from beyond the grave.
Like many baby-boomers, I lived through the sixties and seventies and I know it's possible to lose track of every little thing that happened to one in those colorful days. I may joke around with my friends and claim to be having " LSD flashbacks," but it's all talk. My sister, nine years older, made a big deal over my putative forays into counterculture. I say "putative" because I was a Young Republican during a time when it was not very popular, making me a pariah in my day. Not many drugs actually came my way, but neither did I escape their siren song. I did, however, roll my eyes as my sister sniffed and proclaimed she never did drugs, as she held a frozen daiquiri in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Doubtless you are imagining me in some rollicking (if infrequent) drug-induced fit throwing furniture at my defenseless and sober sibling. I didn't imagine that for one red second. My mind, still pretty sharp in those days, hurtled back to an incident in the early 1960s when we lived in Cincinnati. My sister had pushed me to my limit. As a child, I was pretty laid-back, albeit whiny. You could mess with my head all day long and just get your name strung out in several extra syllables and a penetrating nasal whinge. "Aaaaaeeeeeeeyyunnnnn!" Or, I might perhaps have recourse to our mother, whom I refered to as "my mother," much to my sister's consternation (but let's face it, when you have kids nine years apart, you're a different person by the time the second one comes along): "Maaaaaoooummmmm! Aaaeeyun isn't staying on her side of the caawaaar!" This, of course, cut no ice with our mother. One time she even got out of the car and walked home because she couldn't stand listening to us bicker in the back seat.
But in this case it was 1963 I was no more than nine years old, making my sister twice my age and twice my size. She was frequently left to babysit me and used that time to torture me in various ways: making me wash and dry the dishes when instructions were clearly left for us to divide that chore; creating unfair guessing games to humiliate me for her amusement; calling me names. And one night she just pushed me too far. I shoved the table. I didn't even shove it at her. I just had to take out my frustrations on something. I shoved a small drop-leaf table. I do not recall it breaking, but that just might be all those slaughtered brain cells from my counterculture past. Years later I recall one more incident where I pushed everything off the top of my dresser and she immediately accused me of throwing things at her. "I'm telling Mom," she said. I wish I had thrown them at her.
She did love me, though. She bought me presents, took me to movies, took me to fencing lessons and paid for them. She honed her mom-ing skills on me. She made birthday cakes for me and threw birthday parties - and then stepped in and made herself the center of attention. Years later I had friends who did the same things. Cindy would throw surprise birthday parties for me (I lost my appetite for birthdays early on, necessitating the surprise factor) and invite men she wanted to date. I'd come home from work and find my mother looking shamefaced. "What is it?" I'd ask. She'd moan, and then finally admit she'd been talked into another surprise birthday party after I had made her promise not to fall for it again. And Cindy was late ... again. I had wondered what all the idling cars were doing down the street. To this day I don't mind people knowing how old I am, but I hate birthdays. I'm 54, by the way.
If my sister were alive today (she isn't always speaking to me in my memory), I'd ask her why, if I'd broken the strut on that tiny table around 1963, it was not repaired, nor even looked as if it had been repaired in 1978 when she brought it up. It had been through at least two moves, if not four, and never been at least glued?! Was it thus as a constant reminder of my alleged violent temper?
No, it's just Aaaeeeeyyuuunnn messin' with my head again. Amazing she can still do it, and that I let her do it, from beyond the grave.
Can you tell I've been reading David Sedaris again?
Notes I made about the story when I was in Florida:
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