Two of my siblings are having birthdays again, and I've been so consumed by all the activity around here, both at work and at home, that I failed to make the appropriate commemorative acknowledgements.
Normally, I would've posted a Happy Birthday note on Facebook, but there's been so very little time lately for social media that the opportunity slipped me by.
So before I go any further, let me take this moment to wish both Judy and Craig a very happy birthday!
As part of their birthday festivities, I'm going to share with you some stories about them. Because there is nothing more fun than sharing stories about people, even if you've heard the stories over and over again in the course of the last fifty years.
The Judy Story
Notwithstanding the fact that Jeanne and I were always "The Little Guys", and spent many a happy hour playing together, there were times when Judy and I would be the ones to enjoy a bit of play-acting with the Barbies and GI Joes. She was (and is) a very creative child, with an incredible ability to come up with interesting stories which we would act out with our "action figures". It would keep us amused for hours, especially when she would bring out her horses and we would come up with a Western-style cowboys-and-bad-guys story, utilizing Dad's amazing and wonderful stagecoach to play out a stage hold-up. (There was one GI Joe who had just the right face to be the bad guy. I always felt bad that the he got type-cast, but that's the way it goes in The Business.)
But that's not the story.
It always seemed to me that, of all my siblings, Judy had the strongest sense of theater, the way characters interact, the way a line of dialog moves things along, the way action builds up to emotional pay-off. And she always had an incredible sense of humor, the kind of humor that meshed so perfectly with my own; our plots were completely random but hilarious. My memories of our playtime are full of laughter, silly, raucous, uncontrollable laughter.
But that's still not the story.
Given the amount of time that has passed since those long-ago days of yore, my memories are suspect, and there is no way to verify the actual events; but I can only speak of the jumbled mess of thoughts that are in my head at the current moment. And there are certain memories I have carried with me for my entire life that bring me great pleasure.
Chief among them is a memory, faulty though it may be, that always brings a smile to my lips. And I am perhaps jumbling them up and getting them all confused, but it doesn't matter. This is one of my favorite memories of my sister.
We were naughty children who wanted to stay home from school. I don't remember the exact circumstances; it seems to me that we had both stayed up too late playing with our "action figures" and were too tired and cranky, or perhaps we were just being lazy bums; but the next morning we somehow managed to convince our parents that we weren't feeling good enough to go to school. Instead, we stayed home and watched our favorite television show, Sesame Street. (I was particularly enamored of Bert and Ernie scenes at the time.) And ate toast. Lots of toast. Like, an entire
loaf of toast. With butter.
It's a wonder we didn't become extremely ill.
Whether apocryphal or not, this is the image of my sister I have carried throughout my life: a highly creative, hilarious, impish young girl who was willing to spend hours with her little brother coming up with crazy stories and watching educational television while mindlessly consuming far too many carbohydrates.
Judy, I hope your birthday was full of fun and craziness and lots and lots of laughter. And cake.
The Craig Story
Craig was my first son. He was biologically my little brother, but I have always thought of him as my first son, especially since I learned so much about caring for children from him. For the first two or three years of his life, he was a central character in my life; my world revolved around him and
his baby brother. I had never known such joy in all my life than that experienced with them in those first few years.
Which they (obviously) don't remember.
But there were moments in those first few years which I remember quite clearly, like the time he decided it would be fun to ignore my demand to stay out of the road (we lived on a somewhat-busy road in Richmond at the time) and run like the dickens straight for it. I have never been so scared in all my life as that moment when he took a beeline across the front yard heading straight for the road and I honestly didn't know if I would catch him in time. I did, of course (and I don't remember if there were any cars coming, but it really didn't matter to me at the time), but I was furious. And I may have said some things that scarred him for life. Because the most terrifying thing I could imagine at that point in my life was losing my little brother.
Just a memory, not really a story.
I got into theater in high school, and it was the most fun I'd ever had -- except the part about memorizing lines, because my memory for names and dialog is abysmal. But I loved being onstage and wearing the makeup and being with incredibly talented people (like
Jody and Derick and John, the Triumvirate of Talent). And I loved being in drama class and rehearsing and learning about stagecraft and set-building and lights and sound and all the things that go into producing a play.
There was one class session I remember so clearly. We were doing improvisations on the little stage in the classroom and the teacher would call out a situation or an emotion for us to act out. I don't remember the exact phrase she used, but it was something like
heartbreak or
loss, as in
loss of a loved one. And the first situation that popped into my mind was losing one of my little brothers. And because Craig was the older at the time, and had developed the most personality and connection with me, he was in my thoughts. And I got up on that stage and performed like I'd never performed before. Because losing my little brother to accident or circumstance was the most heartbreaking thing I could imagine.
That was the one and only time my teacher told me that she could palpably
feel my emotion from across the room. It was the best acting I ever did. Because that fear was so close to the surface, so constantly on my mind, that it
was real. I didn't have to do much acting. I just had to see it in my mind's eye.
But that's not the real story.
The real story took place long after I had disappeared from the scene, after I had gone off to college and spent four years away from Craig and the family, losing touch with the daily activities and effectively disappearing from their reality. I was just the big brother who lived in St. Louis or Seattle or New York, who occasionally visited but wasn't a part of their day-to-day lives.
And he was the Boy with the Camera.
Because I had given the family a VCR camera one year at Christmas for the express purpose of filming the boys as they grew up so that I would (one day) be able to watch all the fun I was missing.
And Craig became the principal cinematographer. And he recorded a lot of material. Very, very funny material. Including recreations of Monty Python sketches.
Years later, when I finally got to see some of these films, it was obvious from the first scene that he has a genius for twisted, humorous, biting satire. And he is
extremely funny. {One of these days, I'd like to see the complete beginning-to-finish videography of everything he's ever filmed, just to watch the development of his talent.}
As a result of his talent, we asked him to film our wedding. And he did a marvelous job, producing a tape that we continue to treasure. But, of course, he also provided a peculiar twist which marked it as his very own: during the prayer, he pressed the
fade-to-black button, just as though the camera itself was a member of the congregation.
We crack up every time we watch it. It's insanely clever, funny, and yet completely logical. John Cleese would be proud!
Craig, I hope your birthday is full of the same spirit of fun and craziness and hilarity! (And maybe some hiking...)
