68

 My baby brother is 68 years old today.   So I found a photo that is 68 years old. 

Our Mother has marked the photo Carey + Connie 1954, it was taken on the South side of the old farmhouse in Carsonville Township, Becker  County Minnesota....photo most likely taken sometime in the Summer of that year...my baby brother would have been about 4 or 5 months old and I would have been almost 3 years old.   It looks like my baby brother needed a bit of help from his big sister to sit up! 

Happy Birthday Baby Brother!

Far Side

March 26

Today is my baby brothers birthday.  He was born a long time ago on a stormy March day.  My status as an only child was never the same again.

I was 2 1/2 years old when he was born. 

In a few years he will retire.  He is building a lake house nearby, it has been fun to watch the house come together.  I have been the official photographer.  After 15 months it is almost ready for furniture…and that will probably happen later this week.

Living room, dining room and kitchen.  Beyond the french doors is the porch.  It will be a wonderful gathering place!  The ceiling is pine from some Norway pines that had to be removed and the oak floors are from oak trees that were removed to make room for the house.

Happy Birthday Baby Brother!

Eclipse

There were high clouds but you could still see the sun was out. We ran errands in town.

People were standing outside with various glasses.  One group at the Farm Supply store had welders helmets.  In one parking lot people were pointing and they had no glasses on at all, the sad thing was they had small children with them.  We saw one guy stopped in his car with his sunglasses on…just stopped in the middle of the road. 

  As it got darker more car lights came on.  It never got really dark, but it was a twilight.  Far Guy called it an eerie twilight.

I waited in the car while Far Guy ran one errand and watched people watch.

I hung one of my old cameras a point and shoot out the window and took a photo. Nothing much to write home about. We were supposed to be at 80% of the eclipse.

The only other solar eclipse that I can recall was in July of 1963.  My baby brother built a box to view it, I may have helped him…I do not recall that part, the design was probably something out of the old Grit publication.  I recall people saying back then that you could look through old negatives…negatives were larger back then.  It was a sunny day back in 1963 as we sat out in the yard waiting for the eclipse to happen. It seemed darker than it was today, but perhaps that is because it was a sunny day….and I was younger and more easily impressed.  That time it was 78% and the main track was up in Canada.

My brother was at home in Oregon for the eclipse yesterday, they had special Tshirts and glasses…it looked like they might have been having a Total Eclipse of the Sun party.

Flashback to 1957

Far Guy and I had a discussion this week about the neighborhood.  We wondered exactly when the old Linnell School was demolished. We think it must have dissappeared in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.  You could see it from the farm where I grew up …it should show up in photos.  I couldn’t remember any photos.

Then I was looking at an old photo of my baby brother…who will soon be older than me even though he was born second.

The school is above my baby brothers head.  We are standing out by the old lightpole and near the cloths line, the pasture is in the background and the school is beyond the pasture. 

I think this photo was probably taken in 1957…that is how many years ago…sixty if my math is correct.

Today is the day 63 years ago that I became a big sister.  I think I should get an award or something.

Happy Birthday to my baby brother!

March 26: Snow and a Birthday

It snowed yesterday.  Winter chased Spring right out of Minnesota.  The wind blew and there were snow whirlwinds coming through the yard.

It rained first and then it snowed.  This is our ball throwing wintertime bench.

We only got a inch of snow not enough to help the trees out or to help out the drought situation we will be in as soon as it warms up.

Sixty-one years ago I became a big sister when my baby brother was born.

I will always be the oldest and he one of the middle children.  He was born on a Friday.  Of course I don’t remember exactly what happened that day…I was just 2 1/2 years old.

Last night he sent me a photo.

 

The weather in Tulsa OK was a bit uncertain yesterday.  This was a wall cloud as seen from his office …what looks like a flag in the center must be a reflection in the glass.   He said “When the cloud started to rotate and suck up water from the ground we went to the stairwell.”  The revolving doors of his office building were blown out from the winds.

Happy Birthday to my baby brother I am glad you made it to 61!

Wistful Wednesday: My Baby Brother

My baby brother is sixty today!  Happy Birthday Carey!

This is Carey and I in 1954, see how supportive I am of him, making sure he doesn’t fall over in the grass.

I don’t have many pictures of him on his birthday but I have just a few on my own birthday!  Here I am holding the cupcakes and he holds my doll…probably what makes him such a good Dad and Grandpa.  In 1957 I would have been six and he was three.

I am not sure when this one was taken, maybe about 1959.  Our Mother sewed our clothing, and I can tell that she sewed that shirt…I am trying to remember what color it was…I think my Dad had one that matched.  I think green…

I was might have been a bossy big sister.  I tried keeping him out of trouble.  Most of the time we got along pretty good, there was that one time when I stabbed him in the foot with a pitch fork…not sure why I felt compelled to do that…I think he was going to tattle on me … and a pitchfork to the foot will stop you in your tracks and make you forget lots of stuff.  I guess he must have recovered.  I might have waited on him hand and foot like the time he stepped on the bullhead at Shell Lake and got blood poisoning…he laid on the couch for days that time with a towel and a plastic bag around his leg, Dreft soap soaks helped to draw out the poison.  I thought for sure he was going to be a goner that time…but  he survived that too.  ( He stepped on that bullhead all by himself, I didn’t push him or nothin’, I even let him use my shoulder for a crutch as he hobbled back to Uncle Hugo’s house.)

I am possibly the best older sister he has!

March 26 1954

March 26  1954 was a day that changed my world forever.  Life would never be the same again.  I was no longer the “only child” I wasn’t the baby anymore. My spot had been taken..just like that  things changed. The world did not center around me.  From then on times would be tough, I would have to learn how to share both of my parents..and most difficult of all I would have to learn how to be a big sister.  Of course I would have to find new ways to get attention..holding my breath and then throwing myself on the floor until I turned blue worked for a very long time.

A girl and a boy..perfect.  My brother was always my Mother’s favorite.  I think because he was a colicky sick baby that cried ALL the time.  Anyways that would make me my Dad’s favorite so that wasn’t all bad, my Dad would take me places and the baby and my Mom would stay at home..perfect.

“Be careful of your brother”..I must have heard that a million times..”Be nice to your brother”  “Don’t do that to your brother.”  “Connie Joy!!” I was only 2 1/2 years old..and he was like a big doll. ( I never liked dolls very much…but real live babies were another story.)

Now I am old..and he is getting older.  Happy Birthday to my baby brother!

  Summer of 1954 my baby brother and me.

March 26, 2012

Fifty eight years ago my life as an spoiled rotten brat only child ended with the birth of my brother.  Oh I am sure it was a winter storm to end all storms and 50 below zero the day he was born.  I was too little to remember.  I was 2 1/2 years old. 

We lived at the farm, we had been there about 1 1/2 years.  Our parents were trying their hand at farming, we were poor.   My brother was a sickly colicky baby..always crying..our parents took turns walking the floor with him.  I had nothing to do with it.  He got ear infections really easy so he was supposed to wear a head covering all the time.

He lives far far away in Oregon now.  H.O.W.E.V.E.R. he still gives me a bad time.   He reads the local blog and sometimes leaves me detailed comments.

Recently I wrote a blog about life on the farm ( Wistful Wednesday 1953) and he left me a long comment.

“Nice memories, I remember you being in the house and ME having to go do chores, you had the advantage of being the “girl”. I also remember ME still having to do dishes after supper, I never did think THAT was fair.

You should have told the part where when you were two of petting the bull’s back legs while standing right behind it. Dad thought you were going to get kicked across the barn, and ran by and grabbed you before the bull kicked. Twas a very mean bull, you were lucky, I think that is why you had your own special pen made, just for you.

I remember, going down into the basement changing into “chore” clothes and then going out the barn, doing the chores and after making sure the boots were clean in the snow, going back to the basement after 2 hours of chores changing out of the “chore” clothes again in the basement.

Mom and Dad would on occasion let me off early if a special TV show was on like Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. Hard work, it didn’t harm me, but you always had the sweeter deal. I’ve often wondered how much easier life would have been for me if you had been a boy.”

A boy??   A BOY???  Turn out all these years he wanted an older brother to help him do chores instead of a bossy older sister.

Mom, Carey and Me  Summer of 1955

I wonder who he would have borrowed that scarf and that skirt from..??

I replied to him:

Possibly when you were a baby we both went to the barn..of course me being older and a GIRL and more responsible I would have taken very good care of you:)

I do not remember life without my brother and I know that he cannot remember life without me.  Now I know what I always suspected..he tried to turn me into a Tom Boy!  Happy Birthday Baby Brother:)

Wistful Wednesday: Christmas 1959

This is a Christmas photo that my Mom took in 1959.

We are on the front porch of the farm house..I am not sure why the tree was out there all covered in tinsel and all. Perhaps this was the winter that some construction was going on inside the house and the tree was better off in the porch.  In early 1960  we got an indoor bathroom and a real tub. That would have been a good enough Christmas present!   No more cold freeze your butt off outhouse seat. No more sharing of the bath water in a galvanized wash tub.

I guess I must have gotten a life size doll so I could practice being a good babysitter or something.  I have no recollection of playing with that doll very much..it had eyes that closed when you laid it down. 

That is my baby brother Carey in the photo..with one of those snazzy shirts that my Mom used to sew for him.  I think that one was flannel and it had horses on it..gosh I loved horses..he didn’t care very much for them..yet he got the horse curtains and the horse shirts..and look at that.. he didn’t even tuck in his shirt or pose for the camera:)

Wistful Wednesday: 1965-1966

When I was 14 or 15 and my baby brother was 11 or 12, my Dad came home from working in Minneapolis/St. Paul one Friday night and he had a surprise for us. A Yamaha 50 Scooter/Motorbike..a 1965 or a 1966.

If I recall correctly it was supposed to be used to get us back and forth from the back field faster than a bicycle.

My baby brother and I had a blast with this little motorbike.  We learned hand signals and everything..they were all explained in the Owners Manual..which I read several times cover to cover. 

My baby brother was especially fond of this motorbike. I took this photo of him the year I took photography for a 4-H project.

I took Cathie one of my friends from High School for a spin. I will guess that Cathie’s Mom took this photo.

Having a motorbike was fun.. sure we got a few scrapes and cuts..and I used to burn my leg on the muffler regularly.  This little motorbikes top speed was about 35 miles per hour..plenty fast for me.

It would appear the my baby brother is revisiting his youth.  He called me the other day and said “Bought myself a Christmas present!”   I encouraged him to be careful and to always wear his helmet.

I did send him a email that said “Saw a guy that was in a motorcycle accident one day he had road rash all over his body..and he looked like one big scab..but he was alive thanks to his helmet.”

I wanted to say more..but I bit my tongue..like are you nuts? you are getting too old to revisit your youth..why didn’t you buy a flashy red convertible and a new hat?  ..did you know that machine weighs 957 pounds?  I should have encouraged him to stick to the back woods gravel roads..stay off the freeway..in Oregon there are more than one or two people on the road at the same time..instead I just said “Be Careful” big bossy sisters should just shut up sometimes. Besides that he looks happy!  Thank you to Mark K for the photos, I think he is part of that same over fifty searching for our youth motorcycle gang as my brother:)

Wistful Wednesday: Easter 1959

Well look at this one, my brother has eggs coming out of his head! This photo is 50 years old! I loved those shoes! My dress was light pink, my Mom had sewed my dress and my coat for me.. I believe the coat was bird egg blue. This photo was taken by my Mother. We were in the big old kitchen at the farm, right in front of the door that led upstairs. I had totally forgotten that the chairs had those rubbery protectors on them so that there would not be little circles poked into the linoleum floors by the chairs. These are the same chairs that we spent a whole hour in after church if we did not sit still during the service. Easter must have been in March that year..someones beautiful artwork is covering up part of the calendar:)