Brothers and sisters have this insidious ability to bring out
the absolute worst in each other. As adults, we look back and either cringe
with embarrassment or bust our pants laughing at our innocents. Other times we
sit back and cry.
Around the time
my second child, Brooki was due, I got this urge to have all of our old film
developed. This included the old black and white pictures that belonged to my
dad. It was an expensive undertaking for our meager budget. The purpose of the
project was to label every one of these precious images and get photo albums
made up. It was fun to see what the memory had forgotten as each time I would
get a new envelope back from the foto-mat. They exposed years and lifetimes of
the everyday events long forgotten. It was on one of these happen-chance, sort
of days that I came across the picture.
I was 16 or 17
years old and waiting for just the pristine opportunity to get my brother,
Todd, into trouble for climbing on other people’s roof tops. Todd was two years
younger than I was. He loved to do the un-natural, like climb on as many
neighbor’s roof tops as he could get away with. He liked to pretend that he was
a spy. Spies are smooth and sneaky. So his “job” was to climb on top of the
roofs – usually lay flat and spy. This was easy in our neighborhood since all
of the yards had lush, green vegetation year-round. Most people were proud of
their yards.
But then there
were the times that he pretended to shoot at all the passerby’s or pretend that
he was fishing. He would outright stand up, flaunting his so-called “right” to
be on someone else’s housetop. And since my parents were at work, what could be
done? There wasn’t any proof – yet!
At just the
right moment, through my bedroom window; with no one else around and using the
Kodak Series 126 camera, I snapped that picture! Proof that Todd McDonald was
indeed climbing on the neighbor’s roof – in print!
That was in 1980,
in a suburban town of Los Angeles called Mission Hills, on a street
appropriately named, Noble Avenue. The picture was not developed until August
of 1989, five and half years after Toddy died. My intent in taking the picture
was to get my brother into trouble. Instead, I ended up creating a window into
the everyday play life of brothers, sisters, and kids in general. It created a
window into other well-preserved memories at a time when I longed for my
childhood siblings and friends. It helped me to see similarities between my
brothers, myself, and my children as well. For instance, my younger brother,
Blake, is mechanically inclined – always has been. In 1973 and 1974 we were
living in Provo, Utah while my step-father, Gary, finished his education at Brigham
Young University. Blake was four years old, blonde, and chubby with a quick
sense of humor, much to my annoyance. If he didn’t get what he wanted, he found
a way.
One evening
while I was doing the dishes, I remember suddenly hearing my very startled mom
saying,
“Hello, hello,
I think Blake cut the cord.”
“Did you cut
the cord?”
Blake had indeed. For four hours he tried getting his mother’s
attention while she spoke to her friend on the telephone. Well, he had her attention
alright – he simply took a pair of scissors and cut the cord!
A year later,
Blake again showed us his childlike mechanical ability when he naively walked
past my dad and step-mother one fine, fall morning. It was the usual routine for
us to give them a hug and kiss good-bye as we left for Canoga Park Elementary
School. Nothing more was said. A couple of hours later, someone from the school
called to inform my parents that although their son was alright, two
kindergarten buildings were not. Why, you may ask? Apparently, the teachers
were playing a record that Blake did not approve of. To solve the “noise-problem”
he simply took out his dad’s handy-dandy wire cutters –the ones that fit so
snuggly in his pants pocket. When no one was looking, he cut that electrical
cord in two. Problem solved!
I relate these
two stories because we pass these traits directly as well as indirectly onto
our children. My youngest son, Seth, was exactly like Blake at one time in both
looks and personality. The two could easily pass for father and son in the
early days. Seth, like Blake, had short blonde hair. Both have had at one time
or another heads that protrude forward like the side of a football.
Consequently, both used to hold their tempers similar to the wet end of an
electrical wire.
About twenty
years after Blake’s incidences, in a cute little desert town called Apple
Valley, California, Seth inherited Blake’s genetics. Seth decided to cut the
cord to the computer mouse. When I asked why, he angelically answered that it
was ok since we had another one in the desk drawer. “See?” as he opens the desk
drawer to show me. He, too, was four years old.
It was while we
are doing the dishes together as a family that I saw the true resemblance and
again longed for strands of my childhood. My youngest brother, Shannon, wrote
me a letter in 1994. He was away at sea, serving in the Marines. He wrote of
how when we were kids he “couldn’t wait to do the dishes.” I didn’t understand
the reason since we all hated it.
Picture this:
Blake and I are scurrying about, trying to get things done. We are arguing over
who should do what. Little Shannon is helping at whatever he can. And then there’s
Todd. Just standing in the background, usually near the stove, with a dish in
one hand and a towel draped over the other. On his face is a stare that says, “What
do I do now?” And although he was far from stupid, he knew how to convince
anyone that he wasn’t too bright. Occasionally, Todd actually did dry and put
away the dishes. YET – anytime, even a drop of water, yes, a drop of water
landed on his fresh pajamas, was excuse enough to send him flying to his room
for a new pair. Or, he had the sudden urge to go the bathroom.
Later, it was
my daughter, Brooki, who would argue with me over whether she should wash or
dry. Sometimes I would let her win at getting to wash the dishes – her favorite.
And like myself and Blake, Brooki and Seth would argue over who would do what
and when. Of course, there was my oldest, John, who, like his Uncle Todd, hated
to do the dishes and tried his sneaky best to worm his way out.
Finally, as if
by déjà vu, I noticed Seth on top of our roof top in Phelan, California, facing
the same direction as Todd did so long ago. I couldn’t resist. I snapped the
picture of my 11 year old son standing there, rope hanging from him with
who-knows-what-else. The picture hangs in a decorated from in my living room as
a reminder. Kelli McDonald 6/11/2012
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