When Jonathan was born a year and a half after me, my princely status as the heir of exclusive affection was over.  I would now be required to share. Everything! Affection, attention, food, clothes, toys, and my room.  I got to keep my portable jacuzzie though, a plastic cooler without a top, which was less abrasive than the aluminum tub they found for my brother.

Mom was relieved with his arrival because it portended something new, something fresh.  For one thing, he was lighter than expected. The usually reliable mommy-weight-gain-to-baby-birth-weight ratio had predicted something in the neighborhood of 8 or 9 pounds. He actually weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces; a more manageable size than his older brother, yours truly, who tipped the scale at 9 pounds, 2 ounces.  And THAT after being induced two weeks early.  I was like a Baby Huey my first year; big and dopey. Jonathan was more like Tweety Bird, by comparison; cute yet devious.

My first year, before Jonathan came, my mother’s friends–concerned mothers with more progressive babies–would ask things like, “Shouldn’t he be sitting up by now?” or, “Shouldn’t he be talking?”

“No,” my mom would say, “he’s just big for his age.”

Well, kind of. I’m not sure mom forgave me for being over nine pounds. More embarrassing still, of her four children, I was the only one to come out with a full head of hair. I suspect she overplayed the “bigger than his age” defense because I was a slow starter, despite my size.  It would not surprise me to learn that she used my bigness as a cover for what she feared was stalled cognitive development.

Interestingly, Jonathan, the lightest and scrappiest of our four-member brood, has been a study in constant movement ever since he was born.

“Jonathan! Will you please stop dancin’ around!” said dad, exasperated and anxious to quiet the restless blur in his periphery.

“I not dancin’ daddy, I hoppin’!”

This was true, but not really the point. Within dad’s repertoire of undesirable behavior categories, you were either, dancin’ around, foolin’ around or fartin’ around. Within these three, all manner of particular behaviors–such as “hoppin”–could be defined. It wasn’t prudent to correct dad’s choice of words, but at that tender age of two, Jonathan was in the clear. He had at least another year or two before he would be accused of flirting with that other less ambiguous category called, “talking back,” a category, I daresay, Jonathan excelled at in his teens.

Unlike his laggardly predecessor, Jonathan was anxious to get out of the womb and on with life. We were opposites in many ways. A simple catalog of the contrasts will serve to illustrate this point:

• He was a ravenous eater; I needed to be coaxed.
• He was wired for constant movement and social mastery; I was wired for lethargy and long bouts of catatonic introspection.
• He had a quick tongue that often got him into trouble; I had a slow tongue, which usually meant my parents had to be more vigilant to keep me out of the “slow” classes in school.
• He now works at a frenzied pace abroad with his base in New York City for big bucks; I now work in Higher Education, just for the “thrill of it.”

These differences are interesting now, in retrospect, and perhaps to parents who watched it as it happened. We thought nothing of them. We only knew each other. It was quite convenient, actually, to have a companion who thought differently enough to come up with new ideas and alike enough to consort with. Our differences worked to our advantage. We were a force of unpredictability under the radar. Jonathan, rascally creative genius, was quick to come up with lunatic ideas on the fly. I, more fearful and methodical, tempered his highly visible plans into workable, clandestine operations. (Ok, for the record, I had my own share of lunatic ideas, he will tell you–he will interrupt to tell you!–but for the sake of a more consistent narrative, I’m sticking to my story that his ideas were crazier.)

Yes, a force of unpredictability under the radar, that is, until we got caught. Then, the response was something like, “I can’t believe I even have to tell you this…” or, “You’re not leaving here until I get a good explanation about why you deliberately disobeyed me!” or, “What on earth made you think throwing rocks at cars was a smart thing to do?” That last one was a miscalculation on my part. The lady across the street, Mrs. Basset, the wife of my 3rd grade teacher, knew who we were and reported us promptly, after storming out of her front door with the warning, “I see what you’re doing. You should not be throwing rocks at cars!”

We flew home on wings of fear. Later that night we got the “punishment-fit-the-crime treatment.”

“So,” my father said, half grinning, “you boys like throwing rocks, do you?”

We knew the drill. Avoid eye contact, look sheepish and contrite and most importantly, say nothing.

“I’ve got a job for you that involves R O C K S.” He spoke the word “rocks” slowly, knowing our attention was now at his mercy. With calm deliberation, the kind that relishes those moments when poetic justice is about to be served, dad proceeded to tell us how, since we like rocks so much, we could pick out all the small rocks that had been plowed into the yard with last year’s record snow. He’d been looking for a way to clean those rocks out for months, which were dulling the lawnmower blades every time he ran over them.  Occasionally, a rock would fly out from under the mower hitting the car, the house or an unwary family member.  There were thousands of these pebbles, half buried in the grass, that needed to be hand-picked, tossed lightly–NOT thrown–into our little red wagon, and then transported back to our driveway. By a kid’s reckoning, a week’s worth of tedious rock play.

For most adventures, or misadventures like this one, we were pretty like-minded. Once in a while, though, differences in personality would surprise not only mom and dad, but me too.   Jonathan could be a shrewd competitor at games, for example. And not just any games. He told us, on many occasions, that he only liked to play “winning games.” By this he meant games that he had a good chance of winning, such as “LIFE,” or “Monopoly,” or “Gin Rummy.” Recreational sports, such as tossing a ball or frisbee were out of the question.  Strictly strategic games such as Chess, Checkers or Stratego were, curiously, not included in his list of “winning” games; they had to have some level of luck by which, we learned later, he could manipulate the outcome. Somehow, he always got to be a doctor in LIFE. Somehow, he always managed to get hotels on Boardwalk in Monopoly along with the coveted role of banker. We always suspected foul play but could never catch him. But now I’m making him sound like an impulsive cheater, when all I’m really trying say is that Jonathan was willing to do more than most people in order to win, as you will see quite clearly in this next story.

In the summer of 1975, or thereabouts, our family vacationed at Bethany Beach, Delaware. My grandparents had an apartment there, a few blocks from the beach, which included a boardwalk. It was one of the most memorable vacations we had because of at least three things: Close proximity to fun (the beach, mini-golf and gift shop), freedom to roam freely on our rented bikes, and a daily allowance of one dollar. Oh blessed memory! The daily one dollar allowance idea. It was dreamlike, a beautiful thing while it lasted.

My grandparent’s apartment was on the second story. From its windows, we could look down on the mini-golf course located below, adjacent to the apartment. Mom and dad could take birds-eye video of our game winning strokes. A few blocks away was a dime store that sold little rubber monsters of all colors and shapes for a dollar each. How perfect was that? There were dozens of them. At the beginning of each day, we’d each get a dollar, jump on our bikes and pick out a monster from the store.

All was going perfectly well those first few days: Rounds of Mini Golf, long rides around town, fun at the beach and cash for rubber monsters. Until, near the end of our stay, there was an unwelcome disturbance to an otherwise tranquil week. I had “lost” one of my front teeth, which meant, CHA-CHING, I got another dollar! Another dollar, another monster, which was one more than Jonathan had. I now had five monsters to his four.

I don’t recall gloating over this, but I’m sure I was still pretty happy about it. Pretending not to be happy was a form of empathy too advanced for an eight year old. My glee seeped out. Jonathan was one monster down and in a need of a handout, but alas, our parents were not socialists. The Tooth Fairy smiled on me and I was provided an inconvenient advance.

So, Jonathan did what any aspiring entrepreneur would do.  He asked for a pair of pliers.  Grandma shuffled through here kitchen drawer of odds and ends, pulled out a pair of pliers used for fixing bikes and leaky faucets and handed it to him. Whether this was in plain sight of mom or dad, I don’t know. The apartment was not that big.  Jonathan’s timing though, was always impeccable.  He chose either late morning or early afternoon, between events, when there was plenty of activity and when no one was really paying attention.

At one point, someone asked where Jonathan was and someone else replied that he was in the bathroom. “He’s sure been in there a while.” That was as far as the investigation went that day, until he came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later with a bloody smile and tooth in hand. Instantly, everything made sense, but it was too late. He exchanged both tooth and pliers for a dollar and a monster. What else could they do?  They were not socialists.  At least, it was reasoned, he pulled a baby tooth.

I have to wonder how many teeth he wrestled with that day before he found one that would submit to his will and come out. Were the surviving teeth, racked and bent in their foundations as they were never meant to be, destined for braces from that day forward? We’ll never know. But it is interesting to note that Jonathan did eventually get braces and that he was the only one in the family to need them.

© 2010 – 2011, R M Braaten. All rights reserved.

How bright on the blue
Is a kite when it’s new!

The Kite
by Harry Behn

In the Isle of Man and along the Welsh Border, witches were said to transform themselves occasionally into bats, and to enter houses in that form.  Mrs. Leather relates the story of a man at Weobley Marsh who saw ‘something like a bat’ fly into his room.  He struck it with his handkerchief, but when he went to look for the corpse, there was nothing there.  He said afterwards that he knew from this it was a disguised witch, one of those who then lived upon the Marsh, because a real bat would certainly have been killed by his blow.

…In Oxfordshire, it is a death omen if a bat flies three times round a house.  When bats come out early in the evening and fly about as though playing, it is a sign of fine weather to come.

Children, when they see a bat, sometimes avert ill-luck by singing or saying:

Black bat, bear away,
Fly over here away,
And come again another day,
Black bat, bear away.

or

Airy mouse, airy mouse, fly over my head,
And you shall have a crust of bread,
And when I brew and when I bake,
You shall have a piece of my wedding cake.

(Excerpts from The Encyclopedia of Superstitions)

I’ve had my share of peculiar dealings with bats.  My earliest exposure was the rumor of bats that flew out of an old chimney, the only remains of a burned-to-the-ground abandoned house near Pond Factory.  We visited the site but saw no bats that I can remember.  Still, we thought we could sense them.

On a college choir trip in Colorado, I once killed a bat in mid-air with a hymnal, of all things, in the balcony of an old church.  I strove with the “airy mouse” when he flew up the dark stairwell to “attack” me.  All I could see was a darting shadow in between shadows.  I swung the hymnal wildly until it hit its mark.  Clearly, this was self-defense.  I don’t condone this behavior.  I think it’s actually illegal in some states (TN comes to mind, maybe CT), but no one at the church seemed to mind, particularly the young ladies, who were convinced it was infected with Rabies, which, if transmitted through bat saliva, causes madness and convulsions.  Come to think of it, maybe I should have wiped down the hymnal.

My favorite memory of a bat, however, was not with a real bat at all, but with a kite in the form of bat whose only real crime was wanting to fly higher. This is the story of Bat Kite:

When Jimmy, a friend of mine from church, asked if he could fly his kite at our place that afternoon, I thought nothing of it.  With several acres of open field, our hill seemed like a good place to test drive a new kite.  It was a bright and windy day, perfect for kite flying.

I wondered what it looked like, Jimmy’s kite.  For all I knew, it was just like any other kite; in the shape of a diamond or modified triangle.  I didn’t have a kite of my own at the time so I convinced my dad, somehow, to stop by the local country store on our way home to buy one.

Stopping by the country store was a ritual of sorts, typically for the Sunday paper and an earful of local Woodstock gossip.  (Just a minute or two, that was acceptable.  Any more than that and you were a busybody.)  The gossip itself didn’t mean much to me because I didn’t know who or what they were talking about, but I liked how animated my father became when he got the inside story on some nearby shenanigans.

It was odd that such a small store would have kites, but it did; a small selection of them bound in plastic and sitting in a barrel close to the door.  That’s where I found Bat Kite.  I liked Batman–the comic book, not the TV show.  The real Batman was scary looking with his dark and mysterious costume.  Batman, the TV hero, wore his pants and belt up too high.  How was that comfortable?   As far as superheros go, Batman was my favorite.  Superman wasn’t scary at all; he was squeaky clean and a bit geeky with his curlicue bangs and red underwear pulled over his blue tights.  Spiderman was more of a freak than a hero having been genetically altered because he got bit by a radioactive spider.  He was lucky, that’s all.  Anyone can get bit by a spider.

Thus was I partial to Bat Kite, which had “menace” written all over him.  Bat Kite had two hypnotic eyes that said,  “don’t mess with me or I’ll suck all your blood out!”   So, in less than five minutes, Bat Kite and I were on our way home eagerly anticipating his maiden flight.  I wondered how well Jimmy’s kite would fly and if his kite was even half as scary as mine.  This was going to be a GREAT day!

Jimmy arrived promptly and eagerly opened the trunk to retrieve his new kite.  Once unveiled, it was clear why Jimmy’s dad asked to fly it at our place.  It was gorgeous and exploding in color, a large round unicorn kite with a thirty-foot rainbow tail.  ”How much did THAT cost?”  I wondered.  Truly, Jimmy’s dad didn’t want to take any take any chances flying this majestic marvel of mylar and fiberglass over risky air space, such as his own back yard or even Roseland Park.   There’s no shortage of kite-eating trees in Woodstock, I can assure you.

I watched as Jimmy and his dad began to fasten a gigantic spool of string to the mighty unicorn.  ”Wow, ” I thought, “that’s a lot of string.”  I watched as his dad helped launch the long tailed stallion into air.  It soared straight up, its string bending in a great arc against the wind.  I could hear the giant spool of string spinning wildly as the kite galloped above all the trees.

“Dad,” I said frantically, “do you have any string?”

Ever the problem solver, and no doubt feeling the pressure of the moment, my father dashed into the house.  Two minutes later, he returned with the only thing he could find; his silver case of chalk line, still full of blue chalk.  It was crude, he said, and short–maybe only 50 or 60 feet of line–but it just might work.  It was certainly windy enough to carry the weight of the thick chalk-encumbered string.

I was all for it; I had faith in Bat Kite.  By the time we had fastened dad’s chalk line to Bat Kite’s harness, his wings were flapping loudly.  FLAPPITY FLAP FLAP FLAP!  Dad grabbed hold of the wily rodent with the gargoyle eyes and started backing up, pulling out the chalk line as he went.  Blue dust scattered in the wind, off the line, wispy, like blue cirrus clouds.  In an instant, Bat Kite clambered free and was airborne.  Chalk continued to explode out of the case in clumps on my sneakers as Bat Kite climbed.   Then, no more than ten seconds later, “CLICK!”  Bat Kite had reached the end of his tether.

“Already?”  I thought.  “He’s not even above the telephone pole.”

As if infuriated by his short leash, Bat Kite thrashed like a real bat as if he were trying to break free, first to the left than to the right.  FLAPPITY FLAP FLAP FLAP!   I yanked, I slackened, I tilted and contorted my body–all in vain.  Had it not been for the sturdiness of his 20 lb harness, Bat Kite would have surely broken free.  Then, the worst thing that could have happened, happened.  Bat Kite careened across Jimmy’s kite string.

“No!”  my father shouted, as Bat Kite and his blue demon string coiled around Jimmy’s line.

“What’s the big deal,” I thought, as my dad raced to wrangle Bat Kite from his ravenous instincts.  But before he could get there, Jimmy’s line went limp and we watched, in mortifying silence, as the cut string (I say “bit”) pulled away, up, up into the air, out of reach, now invisible.  [Gulp]  The unicorn, now hundreds of feet above the tallest trees, the majority of its string spent and beyond reach, began to descend as it pulled away, slowly, ever so slowly into the heathen forest;  a gripping scene.  Hearts sunk.  Tears were shed.

How bright on the blue
Is a kite when it’s new!

But a raggeder thing
You never will see
When it flaps on a string
In the top of a tree.

I felt bad for Jimmy, I really did.  The brave unicorn kite didn’t deserve that.  If it was Bat Kite who managed to free himself from his line (because that is the way he would see it) and flew into dark forest, I would have thought him truly free, even liberated; a wild beast gone back home.  In fact, I would have imagined him being welcomed by his heathen kin, who lived in such dark places, with open arms and great rejoicing.  I could see no such reception for the rainbow unicorn.  His kindred lived in the clouds, not the forest.  All I could imagine, if I could see his eyes, was fear and trembling as he descended to some unspeakable fate.  What grim torture?  What dreadful trial would he endure in that grave hollow?  Was I responsible?  Would the ghost of the rainbow unicorn haunt Braaten Woods in the years to come?

I reined Bat Kite in, as discretely as I could (his loud flapping seemed inappropriate), laying him down on the grass until we were done consoling Jimmy.  Once he finally came to grips with the hard truth that he’d never see the unicorn kite again, he left with his dad and his near-empty spool of string.

Bat Kite lived to fly more days following this ill-omened beginning, with real kite string that allowed him to soar high above the trees; to dive like a falcon and to spring up again.   If anyone saw the unicorn kite, wracked in some towering Pine or tangled in the wide and gnarled branches of a giant Ash tree, it was Bat Kite.  Would he feel anything if he saw it?  Would he still feel guilty and feel compassion?  Or would he snicker?  I think I know.

© 2010, R M Braaten. All rights reserved.

“No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.”

— Harry Houdini

My brother somehow came into the possession of a large book on Houdini at the perfect time for two young, aspiring illusionists looking for the next “great act.” I suspect we got it from the North Woodstock Library, accessible off a little shortcut bypass about a mile from our house between English Neighborhood Road and Route 169. The library, an 1843 schoolhouse, was chock-full of old donated books from other libraries and the dusted-off collections of older patrons. Lots of Zane Gray and Hornblower, and a smattering of Scandinavian titles like “Eric and Britta” (about a boy and his reindeer), but definitely short on newer, shinier titles peddled by Walt Disney and George Lucas. This library appeared to be more serious than our school library. It did have a nifty LP record collection, which we thought was pretty cool.

The librarian was a neighbor of ours, well liked, very sweet, but not sugar sweet (like some of our elementary teachers).  Being too sweet–at least for New Englanders–was patronizing, and appropriate for toddlers only, not for future men. Our librarian (her name escapes me now) wasn’t patronizing at all, nor was she pushy.  She encouraged browsing and may have pointed us in the direction of a particular corner of the library, but she was careful not to pull individual books from the shelf to sell them, as mom was apt to do having grown impatient with our uninspired browsing efforts. All suggested titles were swiftly and arbitrarily dismissed, and we had our reasons for doing so; good reasons:

Once, I remember being forced to read Island of the Blue Dolphins. By forced, I mean kept in my room for hours at a time until I finished it. I think my mother reckoned that this book and I would get better acquainted if we were locked in the room together, or perhaps “duke it out” until only one of us was left standing. The book won, handily. I can still remember shifting restlessly back and forth in my bed, the top bunk of our bunk bed, trying to stay awake, trying to focus and be even mildly interested in the story, reading a single page over and over and over because it just wouldn’t stick. First of all, the protagonist was a girl. Second of all, it was boring. Does this book description sound enticing to you?

O’Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island.

My mind wandered before I could get through half a page. This was when I decided I was to be a math guy, not a reading guy. It wasn’t until high school, unfortunately, that this plan changed abruptly with the introduction of Algebra II, but the Island of the Blue Dolphins episode would always be likened to some kind of Gulag internment, however brief it was.

Now the Houdini book, THAT was different. It had pictures of the Great Houdini tied, chained, bolted and wrapped in all variations of physical restraints and from each one of these impossible traps, he mysteriously escaped. No one knew how he did it (or we didn’t read that far) and his unfortunate death was proof that the danger and risks of his profession were real. Yes, we could do this! We could test each other’s ability to escape from any number of traps. We had all the materials we needed at home; belts, ropes, rags and sheets–and we wouldn’t have to ask for them. The rules were always the same: Start small, just one or two restraints, leave the room, and then see how long it would take for Houdini to get out. With each successive binding, all participants taking turns, more restraints were added so that if you were one of the last to have a turn, yours would be the most difficult. It was important not to watch Houdini slip his trap, so the escape always happened behind a closed door. No one wanted to give away their secrets of escape.

I couldn’t tell you how many times we played this game before we introduced it to one of our friends from church, we’ll call him Peter, but it was probably too many. It didn’t end well, I’ll say that much. The game was new to Peter so he, naturally, wanted to see us do it first before he took his turn. Unfortunately, that meant that by the time his turn came, our creative juices were really flowing and we concocted a brilliant battery of restraints that no one, perhaps even the real Houdini, could break. As it turned out, we were right–at least for Peter. After tying his hands behind his back and his legs together, we rolled him up in a bed sheet and laid him on top of our bunk-bed ladder (our makeshift stretcher for transport). After he was placed on the stretcher, we carried him downstairs, slowly and with great care, removed him from the stretcher, placed his body under the stairwell, and then closed the stair well door behind him. He panicked. He panicked and started to scream as if he’d been thrown into a pit of vipers. We didn’t expect that. We quickly released him from our handiwork and then promptly took him home. I should say, our parents took him home and we were thenceforth forbidden to play “Houdini” with any of our friends.

Houdini went into hibernation for quite some time until our little sister resurrected it, wanting to play the game herself. Big, big mistake. Jonathan and I were older now and wanted something more dramatic to impress our sister. The game’s object somehow morphed from slipping a difficult trap to striking horror in the hearts of each participant. So, when our little sister’s turn came, we tied her hands and feet behind her back and carried her up to the bath tub. Shutting the door behind us, so as not to arouse undue suspicion, we set her, tummy down and facing the water spout so she could witness the water slowly rise as she struggled to set herself free. I had the drain opened so that its rise was very, very gradual, but she didn’t know that. All was going well–the water running, fear beginning to take root in Houdini’s mind, until mom walked in, horrified, and put a stop to it. The look on mom’s face was, “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” and, “What if I wasn’t here?” and perhaps even, “Who are these monsters?”  I pointed out that the drain was open, but there was simply no explaining this away. That was the very last time that Houdini was played at our house.

© 2010 – 2011, R M Braaten. All rights reserved.

“Tell me what company thou keepst, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.”
- Miguel de Cervantes

“Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.”
-Benjamin Franklin

“If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.”
- Samuel Johnson

The whole concept of choosing my friends carefully was alien to me as a kid. Friendships developed out of convenience and proximity, nothing more. If Facebook was around back then, I would have gorged on it and fused myself to its Borg-like collective. To be my friend, you only had to talk to me or sit next to me. Had my parents known about this lackluster vetting process, they would have reconsidered the amount of unsupervised time I spent with them.

“So, who are your friends, Matthew?”

Hastily, in order to speed up the interrogation process, I rattled off whatever names came to mind not thinking I would soon be spending more one-on-one time with them as a result. To wit, I remember several rather uncomfortable drop-offs that can be easily traced back to these interrogations. My world was expanding, and would continue to expand so long as my tongue waggled so heedlessly.

“How would you like to visit your friend Jimmy after school?”

“Jimmy?” Did she mean that kid that sat next to me who told gross jokes?

“Yes, your friend Jimmy.”

What could I say? I wasn’t capable of saying no to such things. I lacked a backbone and a strong will, things my younger brother seemed to have in excess and that constantly got him in more trouble than I did. I think I had associated backbone and will with ‘talking back’ and ‘giving lip’ when exercised inappropriately, so I just went along instead. That was my strategy for not getting into trouble; do not offend.

“What kind of cake would you like for your birthday party, Matthew?”

“I don’t care.”

“Which of these t-shirt do you like best?”

“I don’t care.”

My inability to assert my will or even share an opinion troubled my parents so much that they procured Maurice Sendak’s, “Pierre: A Cautionary Tale” as my bedtime story. You see, Pierre was the obstinate little boy who just didn’t care:

“What would you like to eat?”

“I don’t care!”

“Some lovely cream of wheat?”

“I don’t care!”

Don’t sit backwards on your chair.”

“I don’t care!”

“Or pour syrup on your hair.”

“I don’t care!”

Using books in this way was not an uncommon practice in my upbringing. In addition to having no backbone and a will, I was also a known dawdler who soon found his parents reading, with some emphasis, the tale of the “Poky Little Puppy.” That story never really worked on me as Pierre did, perhaps because a Lion didn’t eat the Puppy in the end, as was the misfortune of naughty little Pierre (for a moment anyway). I’m still pokey, after all, but I’m happy to report that the “I don’t care” phase didn’t last long. My mother tested the limits of my apathy one day when purchasing some new dress shoes. I honestly believe she picked out the most hideous pair of shoes she could find. They were green-black in color with a bumpy surface, like toad skin with one-inch thick black soles. I’d never seen anything like them. Who would buy these things? But it didn’t matter, my mother suggested they would look good with some outfit of mine and I, thinking she would read my mind’s “no way,” said, “I don’t care,” instead; my fate sealed.

It hit me, as we were driving home, that I really did care. Those shoes were horrible and I agreed to their purchase. Now, I had to wear them and explain to friends–friends with cool sneakers–why I was wearing discounted imports from Slovakia. But outside this single exception, a lesson learned the old-fashioned way, I wasn’t very good at connecting the dots or drawing inferences between the moral of the story and my life. Likewise, I didn’t see how my careless dropping of names would lead to a sudden string of “friendship co-ops” and outings.

Having spent the majority of our playtime outside, with little supervision, my brother and I cultivated an imaginative world of play; a little too vigorous for friends deemed “lucky” enough to spend the afternoon with us. I remember one friend who got sick just from walking up our dirt road. This was much longer than his usual walk of 30 yards from the bus stop to his front door (lucky bum). He got nauseous and weak in the knees after drinking what he thought was warm milk. It wasn’t, but we took him home anyway. I think it was the climb that got to him. What a waste of an afternoon. I hated when play dates ended like that.

Through trial and error, my brother and I learned how persuade our peers to do things they wouldn’t normally do because it promised to be “fun” and “wicked cool.” For us, it was always fun! This was no lie we were peddling. Many newcomers (recently co-opted friends, for example) haplessly fell into our well-laid strategems. A game appropriately titled, “Houdini” comes to mind…

© 2010, R M Braaten. All rights reserved.

THE hill that my brother and I knew growing up was not the tamed and cut property that Braaten Hill is today. Scrub brush and wild high grasses grew unencumbered over wide open spaces between dilapidated stone walls and encroaching woodlands. The land would take time to groom; ten to twenty years to at least appear managed.

While mom and dad were busy wrestling a house into a home, my brother and I ventured out from our hinterland outpost to explore its boundaries; Lewis and Clark in knee-high tube socks, sneakers and Tough Skins (that would eventually become shorts once the knees had worn through).

We never really knew where the boundaries were between our land and Grandpa’s land, or the Hibbard’s land, or Uncle Bobby’s land. There was a difference. We felt safe crossing Grandpa’s boundary, fairly safe crossing Uncle Bobby’s–he was the huntsman of the family–but definitely not safe crossing the Hibbard’s property. The Hibbards didn’t like us, or so we thought. We didn’t really know them, of course, but that only fueled wild speculation in the fertile soil of our shared imagination. Would they notice our little footprints on their side of the stone wall? Were there booby-traps set to snare trespassers? “Did you hear that twig snap behind the bushes?” Run!!

I don’t ever remember my parents telling us “Now, don’t venture off too far. Stay where I can see you.” No, it was usually something like, “That’s it, you’re going outside for the rest of the day.” Within minutes, play clothes were rustled up, sneakers were tied with double-knots and we were whooshed out the door. “Click.” That was the sound of the dead bolt turning after the door was closed behind us. Through the door’s window we could see mom saying, in muffled tones, “you’re not allowed back in until dinner. Go play!” Or was it, “Don’t come back until it’s dark”? I don’t remember. But we didn’t usually stay out past dark. Our stomachs led us back home in plenty of time for dinner.

We were always hungry, or “starving,” as we’d put it. We’d snack all day if we were allowed to. Correction, we’d snack all day if we could find enough food and if we weren’t habitually locked out the house. But our periodic scouring the cupboards for food is another story. When outside for more than a few hours, we’d survive on sour grass, grandma’s raspberries and grandma’s very, very sour rhubarb. I even tried some kind of tree bark, which smelled like wintergreen mints but tasted pretty much like plain old wood. Why would God make something smell that good if you couldn’t eat it? Unfortunately, after this wintergreen bark discovery, several trees suffered a humiliating, blotchy de-barking…

© 2010, admin. All rights reserved.