I love my brothers, but growing up with them was a trial...
My closest friend as a child was the creek next to our house. When my parents were looking at houses to purchase, they narrowed the choice down to two. One house was a grand old Victorian on acreage. The other house was a modest Cape Cod which was flanked by a stream. The Victorian had more square footage and was next to farmland. But my father chose the Cape Cod, because he loved nature and water in particular.
That creek became an important part of my life. At night, I could hear it chuckling softly outside my window. It was a comforting sound that lulled me to sleep. During the day, when I wanted to escape the drama of being part of a family of ten, I would retreat to the creek. At that time, there was a thriving crawdad population. I would sit on the bank, my bare feet in the water and dig through the mud to find the babies. I named them and the big ones too-scrappy grandaddies with missing claws.
My brothers, in their hobo days, would set up camp under the concrete bridge and light fires. One day, they got a big pot and filled it with water. They set it on the fire and brought it to a boil. I watched helplessly as they grabbed my crawdaddies and threw them mercilessly into the boiling pot. When they were done, they ate them with relish along with some of my father's pirated brew and laughed at my naivete.
My brothers, like all boys, seemed intolerably cruel to me. And they seemed to get away with "murder" as far as I was concerned. They were a roudy bunch, building "go-carts" and then crashing them into trees and blowing up their fingers with firecrackers. The only altruistic memory of them that I have is when they invented a water tank on wheels and would rush to neighborhood fires to help the firemen. When they were older, they crashed motorcycles and fish-tailed their cars in the snow in the winter and raced cars at the track in the summer.
I miracuously survived my childhood, in spite of the torture that my brothers inflicted apon me. Thank God I had sisters to balance the terror. I live in the house I grew up in, and I still retreat to the creek for solace. Only now it isn't because of my brothers taking hairspray cans and setting fire to them to see what would happen or hiding under my bed to scare me when I went to sleep or hanging my dolls in effigy after burning off their hair and cutting off their fingers. Can anyone relate?
My sister could probably relate as she was the only girl with six brothers. However, although we teased her a lot, I don't think we were anywhere near as "rough" on her as your brothers were on you, Lin. I've always felt that a creek, stream, river or water in general has magical properties. Thanks for sharing. Love and best wishes to you and happy new year,
I am the youngest of 6 children, there are 5 of us girls and my brother is the oldest. It would have been interesting growing up next door to you because we needed more guys in our house!I liked taking a glimpse of your life in this story. I was able to see the motorcycles and firecrackers in my mind! I will be tracking your work and reading manyo of your stories and poems!
I'm 'New' to you...and a country girl to the heart- I drive city life, but take me to the country and it't GREAT magesty of views/sceneries and I'm as happy as a pig in shi.... :) I enjoyed your childhood story alot! I could visualize you walking out to the creek,to get away from it all... YOu have so much to share and how you articulate your words, I found it quite refreshing. GREAT write... I will be reading more from you soon....HuG-Lady,Sheee
Excellent write . . . love the lines, "That creek became an important part of my life. At night, I could hear it chuckling softly outside my window" - yes, thank God for your sisters!!
My brothers are so much older then me, they never even had the time, to pick on me... so many nights and still to this day... I truly wish, I would have been blessed with a sister...
yes i can. i have two older sisters who were downright cruel to karla and myself, and years later, we still aren't that close because of how they treated us. we have a brother too, but we get along with him better than our two older sisters. our brother is older too, but by two years, our sisters are four and six years older than us. i love my sisters, but i can't forget how they treated us, so our relationship is strained, but i know with god's help, he will help me learn to forgive them. hopefully, they will do the same and apologize; that is my dearest wish right now. poweful write! well done, linda!
(((HUGS))) and much love, your friend in tx., karen lynn. :(
i know about the fire part: when i was a little kid, a neighbor kid tried to set my hair on fire, but never succeeded; but it still left me with post traumatic stress disorder, and years later, i am still scared of fire.
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