My Brother Bruce

I was born during the depression and most couples during that era felt strongly about having a large family, especially with so much uncertainty in regard to providing for one. So when I was 15 years old, my mother told me she was going to have another baby. I really don’t remember any reaction other than “that’s nice”. I had no reason to fear any sibling rivalry since, I had been an only child and was not being displaced. In a few years, I would be off to college and the world. I did like the fact that my mother seemed happy to be pregnant as if this gave her a new direction in her life. Since previously she was consumed with doing for my father, Papa and me. I think I mentioned in an earlier chapter that she delivered a baby girl that died within 2 to 3 days of birth the year before. So there was much joy in bringing my brother Bruce home. I was in high school and she hired a young woman named Maxine to be a nanny. Maxine had moved to Evansville during the war (WWII) to work in the ship yard and when it closed she needed a job. So she became a full time caretaker for Bruce.
My role along with Ernest my best friend was to play with him once he was big enough to withstand the rigorous doings of two wild teenage boys. One thing we found out he was a girl magnet when we took him out in his stroller or for walks. We were always being asked could they play with the baby and we made a lot of contacts that way.
He also survived some hairy situations, like being pushed down a hill by one of us while the other caught the stroller at the bottom or pushing him in a swing until it almost looped. Pity this poor child when his brother hadn’t any more sense.
One of the things, I remember is that every spring and summer Papa came out to visit from Washington and he bonded with Bruce as he had with me as a little boy. I don’t know how much Bruce remembers of their walks or his stories, but I hope some of his love is imprinted in him as it was in me. Maybe his artistic gifts were passed on because he once told me that he remembers Papa making sketches with the charred tips of wooden matches……that could be the genesis of his talent. I always had the ability to draw and make things but not anything like his genius. We do know that a lot of our knowledge is passed down through imitation and I hope we both are passing on something in us and him to our progeny.
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