Sister Of Adversity

When our house was being built on City Line ... and I believe this was the summer of 1955 ... at some point we moved in with Bernard Lundy's mother ... my father's aunt ... I don't have any sense of how long we stayed there before moving into the house ... Bernard's mother Hazel lived with her son Joe ... Joe was 16 years older than Bernard and was a force of nature ... like Xmas .. his part in this is coming ... 

I remember being at the house when it was being framed .. the old man was obviously involved with working on it ... because I remember something had broken the lens in one of his glasses and he and another guy were trying to flush glass out of his eye ... I have a strong image of that .. I also remember a Mr. Peanut truck driving by and the old man yelling out to it .. I guess he knew the driver or hated peanuts ...

It was around this time that I started lobbying for a baby sister ... now that idea had to have been planted in my head .. my mother must have been expecting and folks probably started asking me if I wanted a baby sister ... well .. how be damned if I didn't get a baby sister ... I have no memory of my mother being away or my sister coming home ... I don't have any memories of her crying or being fed .. and I was 6 years older .. just another example of how far into my head I actually was ...

My mother tells a story of me in the backyard of the new house .. no lawn ... just broken dirt and clay .. and me racing around with the baby carriage and my sister in it ... she came to the rescue ... I probably thought she was a toy and the only way to play I knew was full on ..

I remember us playing together as we got older .. .me in my cowboy garb ... she managed to get one of my Lone Ranger guns away from me and club me over the head with it .. not hard .. just surprised that this little thing was going to fight back ... as I got older and further into myself my memories of her become less and less ... and that's a shame ... well actually a crime .. I wish we could have been closer ... but it was me .. whatever I had wasn't going to allow for any closeness ...

When the old man died ...I thought peace at last ... no more yelling .. and bickering .. and harsh words .. and vicious sarcasm ... but I was wrong ... my mother was now missing an adversary .. somebody to spar with .. that became my sister ... 

My mother had had a nervous breakdown sometime after my sister was born ... and then she went back to work for a while and we had a housekeeper come in .. Mrs. Ingalls ... I might have this in the wrong order ... but the bottom line is that her psychologist told her she had to be more assertive ... and that is when things really wound up ... it's one thing to be assertive .. it's another thing .. to do it in front of an audience of your children ... I will come back to this ..

When the old man passed .. my sister was in the direct line of fire and I was away most of the time ... it is to my everlasting regret that I didn't step into this in a large way .. I was just this quiet ...in your head ... troubled youth who never went anywhere or did anything until university ... my sister was a normal teenager ... she paid a big price for just being normal ... my mother would disagree with this .. she would say that my sister drove her crazy ... that she was disobedient and disrespectful ... and on and on ... but she wasn't .. she was just living with two people who needed help in the worst way ... 

My sisters birthday is today ... I hope she has a good one ... she has earned it ... a million times over ... she was always the best of us .. and she still is ... 

Phil - 22 December 2020 - San Patricio de Melaque - 7:30 PM)

Krome Koan - 'Don't mess with me or my little sister will kick your butt'