#52stories - Week 14 (Apr 5th) - published late

Siblings. I have three of them: my older sister, Cathie; my brother, Graham; and my younger sister, Sally.

Here's an early picture of the oldest three of us.  Sally was born at the time this was taken, but the one picture I have of all of us taken in this sitting is not very flattering of her and she would not appreciate my including it. This was taken about 1958.

Nancy, Graham, Cathie

Cathie tells me she taught me everything I know.  She would return home from school, and I would be her student.  She is also the self-described "experimental" model, which has been somewhat confirmed by Mom not letting me do things that she let Cathie do, like take a bath with your socks on. What could go wrong?  When we lived on the farm, Cathie sprinkled horseradish powder on a slice of loaf bread and gave it to me to eat. She talked me into biting into an unripe persimmon by doing it first and saying how yummy it was.  Let me assure you that unripe persimmons define the word bitter.  And when we were playing cowgirls, she tied me up and pulled me off of a chair, my chin split, and I had to get stitches.  But that's about all of the bad stuff.  We were far enough apart in age that we didn't have that much to do with each other growing up; especially after Graham came along and Cathie started school.  We became closer after we became adults.  Right, Cathie?

Graham is only 17 months younger than I am, so I cannot remember him not being around.  And he's the one I remember playing with the most as we were growing up, especially on the farm where neighbors were not close by.  We explored the woods and creek together.  Once after my Dad had burned some trash out behind the house, Graham was waving a burning stick around and ended up burning my toe.  Also, in the Buena Vista house, he jumped off the wall, yelled "Geronimo" and started chasing me.  I ended up falling and getting a large gash in my leg; you can still see the scar today. I've told both of these stories before.  We also learned about dinosaurs together because he had a set of plastic ones whose names were imprinted on them.  After we moved to Winston, we spent less time together because we had other friends close by.  He thinks he's Mom's favorite.  But he's really only her favorite son. Right, Graham?

Sally is the baby of the family.  She was born when I was already in school, so I didn't really "play" with her growing up.  She is the only sibling whose actions did not result in my having a scar! One time, we heard a thump, thump, thump; it was Sally tumbling down the stairs.  She was just crawling at the time and Dad was supposed to be watching her.  Another memory on the farm  climbed up on a table and got some matches and lit one.  It dropped on some papers on a table, but I was able to blot out the flames before they spread.  She always seemed happy when we were children and still does today.  We also became closer after we became adults.  Right, Sally?

Growing up, I didn't always appreciate having so many siblings...too crowded in the car, not enough food for seconds, having to share the bedroom and bathroom.  But each of them have added to and continue to add to my life.  Love you all!

Here are a couple more sibling photos.

Graham, Cathie, Sally (see, happy!), and Nancy about 1958 in Fairfield

Nancy, Cathie, Sally, Graham in Fairfield - late 1970s or early 1980s