As bad as it really was growing up in my wild and crazy family, the good news is that it wasn’t all bad. No, in fact, there were some really funny and even happy times. But, I have to say Thank God For My Brother, Danny! He kept things interesting, and was the instigator of the things I remember the most.
My oldest brother, Tommy, was the golden child. Straight (A) student who really never even had to study, it seemed the knowledge just flowed from the universe straight into his brilliant mind. While I, at least, poured over my homework, or studied for tests, Tommy entertained himself with anything from comic books to Greek Philosophy from the day he learned to read. He loved to read and always had his head stuck in a book of some kind. He was tall, dark and very handsome. All the girls chased after Tommy as we were growing up. As a teenager, back in the sixties, Tommy was a smooth dresser. One memory of him in particular always stands out to me and makes me laugh to this very day. Tommy had a royal blue, Tom Jones shirt he bought with his own money and he absolutely loved that shirt. He wore his hair in a high pompadour hair style. He never had a hair out-of-place. When he walked or talked, he carried himself with a presence of coolness…the Fonzy of our time. I mean he thought he was one cool cat and so did all the girls.
My brother, Danny, on the other hand, was the happy-go-lucky, dare-devil one of the bunch. Nothing bothered Danny. He wasn’t afraid of anything and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t try at least once, including, but not limited too, steeling Tommy’s royal blue Tom Jones shirt and selling it to one of his friends that lived down the street for beer money. Imagine how pissed off Tommy was when he saw the neighbor kid wearing his new royal blue Tom Jones shirt, and when he approached the kid and asked him where he got it the kid says, “your brother, Danny, sold it to me”. Yes, Tommy was pissed off but good. He hunted Danny down like a rabbit, and the fight was on. I don’t remember who won the actual fight, the after effect was even worse, for Tommy, later that evening. He was still so mad at Danny that when he was getting ready for a date that night, and he thought he was going to thin his beautiful pompadour with the thinning sheers…guess how pissed off he was when he realized Danny had switched the thinning sheers out for the real scissors? The look on Tommy’s face as he realized his beautiful pompadour was GONE was PRICELESS! Of course, Danny was nowhere to be found for the next few days! I never let Tommy see me, but I laughed until I cried, and even now, it still makes me laugh when I remember that day.
Another time I remember well, was when Danny took $20.00 out of mom’s wallet. When mom found out she called each of us in and questioned us at length about who took her money. However, Danny wasn’t in the house at the time of the questioning so mom told Tommy to go over to the little shopping center behind our house to see if Danny was there at the hamburger joint. Sure enough, Tommy found him there playing the pinball machines, that happened to have several dollars sitting on top of it, and he was eating hamburgers, and drinking cokes with all his friends. Tommy told Danny he better get home, NOW, because mom was really mad because someone took money out of her wallet. Danny asked Tommy to watch his stuff and said he could finnish his pinball game while he went home to let mom know he didn’t take her money. He told Tommy to stay there and he would be right back. Tommy, as book smart as he was, never really caught onto what Danny was doing so he agreed. Danny went home and asked mom what she needed. She questioned him about taking her money. Danny said ” now mom, I didn’t take your money, but Tommy is over at the hamburger joint playing the pinball machine and he seems to have plenty of money with him, why don’t you go see about that”. Mom did, and Tommy was caught red-handed, or so mom thought. Of course, when mom wasn’t around, I’m sure Tommy did something equally as rotten to Danny.
Then there was the time when I was home alone because my mother took her Aunt Ruth, who was visiting from Pennsylvania, up to the top of South Mountain at night to see the city lights. For some unknown reason, but Danny never needed a reason to do anything, Danny came running in our house with what appeared to be blood all over the front of his white shirt. He was holding his chest and screaming he was going to “kill them” as he grabbed a long pole and ran out the front door and I followed him begging him to stop and let me help him. There was an orchard at the end of our street and I saw Danny run into it. Homeless people lived in there sometimes and it was not a safe place to be after dark. But, my beloved brother, Danny, was hurt and I had to find him. So, I ran into the orchard, alone, after dark, trying to save Danny. I screamed, cried, and ran as fast as I could trying to find him. I searched and searched but he wasn’t there. I ran out of the orchard and to the closest house I could find banging on the door and begging the people I didn’t even know to please help me find my brother. They said they would call the police who came and searched the orchard but found nothing. The police asked me where I lived and took me home. I was sobbing trying to make them understand someone was trying to kill my brother. When we got to my house, my mother’s car was there and the police knocked on our door and asked my mother to come and talk to me. I cried and told mom what happened to Danny. She looked at me like I was crazy and said “Danny is in the house”. Then she called for Danny to come out, and sure enough, out he came, in clean clothes, and acting like he had no idea what I was talking about. Then, he told the police perhaps they should take ME in for drug testing! I could have strangled him with my bare hands at the time, but later, it became one of my fondest memories. To this day I still can’t imagine what made him decide to go to all that length just to trick me…but, that’s my Bro, Danny. Thank God For Danny!
Next: Friends!