She lived at home
with us, but I don’t remember much of that except for a few sketchy
events. For example, I remember once
when she had a bad headache and I wanted her to play with me. She was lying on the bed with a cold rag on
her face.
“Sissy, play with me,” I pleaded.
“No! Go away!” she
said. “I’ve got a headache.”
Well, that didn’t sit too well in my toddler’s mind…so…I
grabbed a heavy item off the headboard and smacked her on the head with
it. Maybe you could call that payback
for her letting me walk my baby walker…you know…one of those little baby
vehicles with wheels where the baby (me) sits suspended in the middle and can
walk around….anyway, she let me walk my baby walker down the back stairs. You’ve got to love those sibling
relationships! Served her right.
Shortly after I turned four, she had a baby, my nephew. Since he was much closer to me in age than my
actual siblings, we ended up growing very close as we grew up. In fact, he is still more like my brother
than she really is like my sister. I
spent many nights at his house, and he spent even more at mine. We did everything together.
We stayed up late and watched Sammy Terry (the local late
night horror movie host).
We built random stuff in my dad’s basement.
We horsed around and wrestled all over our bedrooms.
“You boys stop that wrestlin’ in there!” my mom would yell.
“We’re not wrestling!” we would shout back as we froze in
place. Ten seconds later, we were back
to flips and body slams.
Another thing that we used to do sometimes, courtesy of my
sister, was go to the drive in. Being
the late sixties and early seventies, often the kinds of movies shown at the
Ski Hi Drive-in weren’t really appropriate for children, but she took us
anyway, and maybe that’s another story.
The movies weren’t always that bad though. Sometimes they were science fiction flics or
scary movies.
Eventually, I grew to love
going, and started looking for opportunities.
It was just such an opportunity that led to the catastrophic event at
the center of this Muncie Boyhood entry.
My nephew, David was off on a trip to Tennessee with some
other family members, but his mom (my sister) stayed home. There was another little girl staying with her,
and I was sort of friends with her. Dawn
(the girl) and I decided we wanted to go to the drive-in, so we asked my sister
to take us. It wasn’t too difficult to
convince her, since she was in her twenties, she still liked to go out there
too. It was a summer evening. It was warm.
The drive-in was the place to be.
We never made it there that night.
The thing you have to know about my sister, though, was that
she didn’t have much money, and she refused to buy food and drinks at the
venue. She would make her own popcorn
and bring it plus a few Coca Cola’s along.
It was decided. We
were going, my sister, Dawn, and I. So,
my sis started to get things ready. She
checked her money…it was a bit thin. She
gathered a few Cokes. She put the
skillet on the stove to make the popcorn.
(In those days before microwaves, you made the popcorn in a skillet on
the stovetop.)
“I’m out of popcorn,” she said. “We’re going to have to go to the store, but
first we’ll need to go see if we can get some money from dad.”
So, we jumped in the car and drove the five blocks to my
house so we could squeeze a few bucks out of my dad. In short order, he came through and we were
back on the road. For some reason that I
no longer recall, we stopped back by her house and dropped off Dawn to do
something to get ready, then my sister and I drove on to Marshall Carter’s
Grocery Store to get the needed supplies.
I stayed outside while she went in to buy the stuff. Shortly, there were sirens. Soon, the fire trucks from the station down
on Memorial Drive came screaming down Madison Street headed south…the same
direction as my sister’s house. I remember
wondering where they were going, but didn’t think anything more of it. When my sister came out, we just headed back
to get the stuff ready.
Her house was on south Monroe Street; just one block off of
Madison between 20th and 21st streets. We traveled down Madison to 20th
and made the turn toward Monroe. We
could see the flashing lights as we rounded the corner. When we reached Monroe, my sister screamed!
“IT’S MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!
IT’S MY HOUSE!!!!!!!”
She had turned on the skillet, but neglected to turn it off
when we left to go to the store.
According to Dawn, who was waiting nearby, after we dropped
her off and drove away she opened the front door and the whole kitchen was
ablaze. She ran next door and banged on
the door. When the person opened the
door, she told them about the fire and asked them to call for help. Apparently, they didn’t immediately believe
her, so they had to come see for themselves before making the call. By the time we had gotten home, the fire was
all but out, but not before destroying the kitchen and living room. The secondary damage from water and smoke
left the rest of the house in terrible shape and unlivable.
My sister was a blubbering mess, so Dawn and I ran on foot
to get my dad. We told him what happened
and he rushed back to handle whatever it is that dad’s handle in a situation
like that. Ultimately, he took care of
my sister very well. He got her a new
place to live. He personally rebuilt her
house; doing most of the work himself, and then moved her back in.
In the end, the only casualty was David’s canary. I remember the moment I realized that the
bird had died. I was sitting in my mom
and dad’s dining room a few hours later.
We were all talking about the disastrous event and recounting how
everything unfolded, when all at once I thought of the bird.
“Oh no!” I blurted out.
“David’s bird!” It wasn’t my
bird, but I cried anyway. It broke my
heart to know that the little thing perished, and I knew that David didn’t yet
know, and somehow that made it even worse.
In the months that followed, I occasionally helped my dad at
the burned out house. He had an old
light blue Chevy truck, and we made multiple trips to the dump with the smoky,
burned, and water-logged mess that we stripped off the walls and floors.There was one more crazy thing about that fire that we discovered when we were first allowed back inside. I’ve told the story before about my brother who committed suicide.http://caaampersthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/04/muncie-boyhood-switches-and-crying.html He left behind a widow, and she and my sister were fairly close. They loved each other dearly, but often fought like true sisters (or cats and dogs). My sister had an 8 X 10 photo of her in a frame sitting on a coffee table in her living room. When we walked in the front door, the charred mess was everywhere. Nothing was untouched and nothing was unmoved. Nothing, that is…except for that photo of my brother’s widow. It sat there in the middle of the soggy, burnt out room like a beacon in the dark of night. It was unmoved and carried no indication of any damage either from fire, smoke, or water. It was almost as if someone had carried it in after the fact and placed it there.
The expressed opinion of my mom and my sister was that my brother Freddie had protected it and kept it safe during the whole ordeal. Who’s to say? I will say this…I saw the carnage and I saw that picture sitting there. It was truly weird.
One final thought…
In retrospect, sometimes it just might just be cheaper to buy the popcorn at the theater.
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