Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 7:50:55 PM
Toronto (May 20, 2008) -- In a fit of pique or perhaps of candour, Mama once admitted that she had only planned to have two children: my next sister and me, both born in February, two years and one week apart. The two younger kids, both born in October, 4 years and 1 day apart, were surprises. As children will, we seized on this interesting fact for a couple of days, as we all recall more or less, and made rather a big deal out of it before Mama put her foot down and stopped the rumpus with her patented, trademarked *That is ENOUGH.* At all other times that I can remember, we simply moved over for the next sister to arrive, thinking nothing about how many of us there were. (We did envy our neighbour, who was the only girl in a family of six, but that was mainly because she had her own bedroom.) In fact, when Daddys oldest sister, whose caboose daughter arrived when Auntie was 45 and thought she was safely past *all that*, having brought up and sent into the world three much older children, my 20 year old mother made room for one more, saying that Linda and I could be twins. Our house was never very large and our bedrooms were tiny, but in those days bedrooms were where we slept and changd clothes and it did not matter how we were stacked at times like those.
Although there were times that I was totally fed up with the swarm of sisters constantly under foot -- I know that I declared more than once that Little Orphan Annie never knew how well off she was, and Linda and I used to imagine that our real parents, gypsies who played the violin and danced, would return for us one day in a red and gold caravan pulled by black horses -- they frequently came in handy. For one thing, there was always somebody to button you up, and if you could not braid your own hair, somebody else would do it. Because four of us were within five years in age, there were always two teams for Chinese Checkers, Snakes and Ladders, Go to the Head of the Class, Game of the States, or dominos on a rainy day. If you had trouble with your school work, there was somebody to help you; if you had to practice reading aloud, there was an audience. With five girls available to do the chores, nobody got stuck permanently with the work that nobody liked; on snowy days it was less trouble to get the driveway cleared and take the dog for a walk.
Our famly travelled a lot, at first because Daddy raced, and later because most of his brothers and sisters settled within thre or four hours of us, and of course we would drive to Alabama to visit our Southern Granny and play with a whole other set of cousins, drink Coca Cola and iced tea (which we did not have at home) and spend a week at Pensacola Beach in the huge, rambling family *cabin* with a Mothers Helper to look after us. Those were the days before seat belts, so a large mattress was placed in the back seat and we piled in, with an armload of books, a pack of Uno cards, the picnic basket and crayons and paper. There was no talking allowed in the car except if there was blood or your sister fell out of the car; but on the other hand, we could take turns (as long as we still fit) lying in the back window and making fish faces at following cars. In the early days we stayed in Tourist Courts, which were frequently cabins; one such place where we stopped every Easter vacation was run by a Mrs. Cassidy, who was likely mystified by our reverent and worshipful behaviour toward her. We were, you see, told by our Daddy that she was Hopalong Cassidys mother.... When we got older we stayed in motels with pools and teevee, and those vibrating beds where you could have a thrill for a quarter; we girls had our own room and considered ourselves in paradise thereby. (I will tell you about the Hot Rod Days on Fathers Day. Then we lived in a homemade trailer called Crestfallen Manor.) One year we drove home in two cars; our uncle had become dissatisfied with his De Soto and said that anyone who wanted to drive it away could have it, so Mama drove it back from Alabama with three girls in it, and Linda and I rode with Daddy in the Yellow Peril, a 1964 Ford Galaxie XL500 built as a NA$CAR homologue and faster than anybody elses father had. The other girls got to play with the Town and Country bar on the radio; we got to hear Daddy tell stories -- about Chief Falling Rocks who wandered the hills looking for his lost love (hence the signs reading Watch For Falling Rocks), about the Kingdom of Nosmo King (prompted by the sight of a No Smoking sign) where everything was forbidden except poking your nose in other peoples business), about Baron Von Geiger who lived in a mansion at the top of a mountain (in reality a hotel), and about his childhood on a prairie farm with 9 brothers and 2 sisters where they went to school in a sleigh.
We were all glad to leave home and into our own sisterless orbits, some to further education and others to marriage; but we all found that our lives were easier because we had grown up in a crowd. My first collge roommate was an only child, who did not know how to make bed, do a load of laundry, cook dinner on the bottom of a popcorn popper, or make gum wrapper chains. My next roommate could not sing harmony or read morse code or American Sign Language but she knew them all before the end of the first semester; when you grow up with only a brother, you have nobody to teach you these things. (For her part she taught me to speak Shakespeare as he should be spoke, and her Spanish was better than mine.) We scattered around the country and pursued our own dreams -- multiple marriages and children, motocross, home ownership, travel, boat racing, skating lessons, Hollywood stunt work, nursing, engineering, quilting, racing, you name it. But as we got older we began once again to gather together and revisit all the old jokes, songs, stories and memories (sometimes startling people, and I admit it). Now that we are all over 50, our kids grown up and on their own and our parents needing us daily if not hourly, we all admit that we are glad there are five of us to share the burdens as well as the old jokes and stories. Perhaps some day we will all write our memoirs. Until we do, its fun to have someone to remind us of all the reasons that in the long run the more there are, the merrier.