There's Got to Be a Book in Here Somewhere

February 18, 2014

For the conference I attended in San Diego this weekend, I traveled with a long-time colleague.  When we got to the conference, she ran into an old friend she hadn't seen in about ten years.  They fell back into immediate familiarity, and the three of us spent a great deal of time together over long, comfortable meals full of food, drink, and lots of conversation. As new friends often do, we shared quite a lot about our backgrounds and histories, tossing about the stories and anecdotes that shaped our particular paths in life.  Seriously, get three articulate, passionate, creative writers and storytellers together--the entertainment just keeps going.  We often think our own lives to be fairly mundane and pedestrian because we were there, of course, so it seems matter of course to us.  However, as I think back on the memories and situations that came up in the course of the conversation, I am struck once again that if seen by the objective eye, my life might not be quite so mundane as I often think it to be.
I shared stories, to name a few, about...
--the stream of illegal immigrants my parents hired as nannies when we were young in order to give them a start in their new country
--the morbid fear of knives I developed--and still have--because a babysitter (not one of the illegal ones) chased us to our neighbor's house, threatening to kill us
--the time my brother nearly blinded me as a very young girl
--the time my brother nearly blinded my sister as a slightly older young girl
--the time my brother smashed through our patio door to prove he had 'learned' karate
--the time we blindfolded and tied up my younger brother and left him, forgotten, in our attic for several hours
--the time I was homeless for a short while in junior high
--the time my parents bought a private school and we tried to make a run of it for the blink of an eye before they had to shut it down for financial reasons and we were shuttled back to public school
--the private investigator my father hired to spy on us during high school
--the time a party at my apartment (thrown by my roommate, who just happened to be my brother) very nearly ended my teaching career before it ever began
--the time I found nearly $4000 worth of drugs in my apartment
--the last time I ever saw my dad alive

We did, as I said, a LOT of talking.  My counterparts shared just as much of their own histories, which were fascinating and as foreign to me as my experiences were to them.  At the end of the weekend, we came away with two things: we all really enjoyed each others' company, and we all quite possibly have a book in us somewhere.  I mean, I could write a whole book on my brother alone!  Someday...

What's in a Name, OR Who's Clarence?

December 20, 2010

In honor of my brother, who is celebrating his birthday today:

Every younger brother suffers the whims of their older siblings now and again growing up. Usually, it's just light-hearted amusement to alleviate boredom. Our family was no different, in that on occasion when we were too bored to watch t.v. and we didn't want to read anymore and there were no good songs on the radio, we turned to our younger brother to entertain us. We weren't mean, my sister and I--we weren't into embarrassing him or making him cry. We just wanted to pass the time.

Take for example the day we changed his name, just for fun. Lisa and I were in early high school and junior high, respectively, and Scott was in elementary school. Our schools got out before the elementary school, so Lisa and I were home before anyone else. Home alone, and bored. What to do, what to do.... I'm not sure what made us think of it, but we suddenly decided it would be funny to see if we could get Scott start answering to another name. We picked one at random--Clarence. I have no idea why we settled on Clarence; perhaps it was because we didn't know anyone with that name. It sounded like a little old man's name, one who wore a Sunday hat and walked with a cane. Definitely NOT my little brother.

We heard the door handle jiggling. It was showtime. Scott walked in the door, and we greeted him with, "Hey Clarence! How was school today?"

Nothing. He walked past us, completely unaware that we were talking to him. He went into the bedroom to put away his backpack, and Lisa and I collapsed in a giggling fit.

Later, he'd sat himself down in front of the television set. Lisa walked into the room. "Hey Clarence--what are you watching?" Scott turned his head and glanced curiously at her, but did not respond. Throughout the afternoon we continued to address him that way, and continued to be greeted with silence or perplexed expressions.

At dinnertime: "Hey Clarence! Mom says it's time to come to the table."

"Why are you calling me that?"

"What do you mean? Mom said it's time to come to dinner."

He paused for a few minutes, shrugged, and just said, "Okay." He had given up trying to figure us out, and decided to just go with it. (It's a well-known fact that teenaged girls are typically the most unpredictable and puzzling creatures. He somehow intuitively knew that there was just no rational explanation, and that his best possible course of action was just to go along with it. Kind of like training ground for adult men who have realized that sometimes it's best to just nod their heads and say, "Yes, Dear.")

That night, when it was time for bed, I said to him, "Clarence, Mom said to go brush your teeth and get your jammies on." Without missing a beat, he looked at me and said okay and headed to the bathroom. The transformation was complete--Scott was now Clarence.

Who knew all those years ago that Clarence would become more than a way to alleviate boredom on a single adolescent afternoon. We kept it up, the next day, and the next. It became a term of endearment. Mom started calling him Clarence, too, and then our youngest sister. We addressed birthday and Christmas cards to Clarence over the years, and eventually close friends of the family started calling him Clarence, too. Nobody really knew why he was Clarence, but eventually they always asked. The answer? No reason. No reason at all. And yet he was--IS--Clarence, just the same. And to this day, Lisa and I both still probably call him Clarence with far more regularity than Scott. He's our Clarence, and he always will be, just because.

Happy birthday, Clarence. We love you!

Remembering Gary

March 24, 2010
On the day that would have been my older brother Gary's 45th birthday, things that remind me of him:

--The Carpenters (we used to sing together when we were kids)--The Cincinnati Reds (Gary's team of choice when he first started collecting baseball cards)

--Polo cologne (Way too much of it!)

--McLane High School (His Alma Mater, of course)--Sinbad the Comedian (His mannerisms and sense of humor have always reminded me of Gary)

--"My Adidas" by Run DMC (Gary always used to do the baby step walk from the video whenever he wore his beloved Adidas)
--Little tiny baby socks (When Bree was a tiny baby, any time he saw her he always stole one of her socks and put it up on the ceiling fan blade where he knew I couldn't reach it. It was his little calling card.)

---Coca-cola (He was as addicted to that as I am to Diet Pepsi.)

--'Rack 'em, Loser' (He inherited this phrase from my dad, who used to say it whenever he won a game of pool.)

--Tiffany and Anthony (You never saw a dad prouder of his two babies.)

These and a hundred other little things always make me think of him, on his birthday or any other day.

Happy birthday Gary (Gae-Ray, Gee, GeRM)

Look How Much They Love Each Other...

November 15, 2009















...well, you know, when they're not at each other's throats. It changes minute by minute.