Further evidence against my brother
I am so glad that my last post from a year ago was also me talking shit about my brother Evan. I can't wait to read the following entry aloud to my family when I go home for Christmas. Evan and I are each writing (slanted) memories from our growing up and we intend to compile them eventually. If the parents and youngest one don't get on it soon, the entire family history will be written solely by the two most adamant partisans--a delicious prospect.
"Pies on the Frontier"
As children, it seemed that we were always hearing about how much more strict authority figures had been in days past. This impression was buttressed by stories read to us in school, movies we watched, my Midwestern mom’s accounts of the nuns at her 1950s parochial school, and my Montanan dad’s recollections of his decidedly patriarchal, minister father.
A list of the memories I have heard my dad rehearse would be a short one, but, even so, the theme of his father’s strictness stuck out to me when I was young. For example: the time his brothers were dragged out from hiding under the bed to be spanked. Or was it he who was spanked? No matter. The austere feeling of their bygone household was unmistakable to me. One had only to ponder the time one of my dad’s brothers nearly threw up at the dinner table as a boy. One look from grandpa Art, however, was enough to coax those stray morsels back down that esophagus-the path God had surely intended for them.
Who was this man, whose authority extended even over bodily functions most of us would regard as involuntary? Our grandfather, or ‘granddad’ as he preferred to be called, seemed cheery and playful to my brothers and me during our annual visits to Bozeman and Lewistown, Montana. He would meet us at our Uncle Norm’s place by the mountains, wearing comical, enormous sunglasses. And who in our family could forget the immortal sound of his sonorous, bouncing “Ha Ha Ha” laugh, which he let out every single time the pieces of the game Booby Trap went flying (as they inevitably did)?
Well, it is my brother Evan whom I can thank for offering me a small glimpse of my grandfather as my father might have experienced him. One day, the greater part of our extended family decided to dine at the apparently reputable ‘Frontier Pies.’ I imagine I had untold amounts of fun with my cousins, particularly Annie and Jesse, who are basically still the coolest people I’ve ever met. I don’t recall what I ate, but it wouldn’t be difficult to deduce given that the complete list of foods I liked ran as follows: mac and cheese, pepperoni pizza, beanie weenie, hot dogs, hamburgers, tacos, and the occasional lasagna or spaghetti if there was enough cheese involved.
After the meal, we kids got admittedly rambunctious. We were running around between the tables, probably causing hell for the wait staff. I imagine our parents and aunts and uncles weren’t too concerned, though, considering they had also encouraged us to wage Nerf Blast-a-Ball wars in the Yogo Inn, where we stayed. Montanans are clearly a conscientious people.
With all the open space and relatives there in Frontier Pies, I must have been having the time of my life. Evan apparently was too, because he decided to hop on my back and support all of his growing girth by grappling on to my one and only windpipe. As those of you with windpipes already know, these important parts of our anatomy allow us to breathe. As not everyone necessarily knows-as I am going to generously assume Evan did not-abruptly cranking on this indispensable source of oxygen can cause one to expel the contents of one’s stomach, however happily they may have gone down.
I believe my tears started to pour out of me before my frontier meal did, because I remember shaking Evan off and stumbling over to the table where my mother was sitting with my grandparents having what must have been a nice talk. As I looked up at grandpa Art before the fateful spewing, I realized just how much my fortunes-and all of our spirits-were about to turn. Art may very well have tried to give me his old “Don’t you dare throw up here” look, but alas, times had changed, and young bodies could no longer be counted on to obey the dictates of authority. I rarely puked as a kid, but when I did, I seemed to do so with all of my being. This wholeheartedness often made breathing difficult, and this case was no exception, especially after I had been so thoroughly and thoughtlessly choked.
As usual, all praise is due to my mother, who tried nobly-vainly-to catch all the brown fluid and chunks in napkins (too few! too few!) before any more got on my grandparents’ laps. Grandpa Art never reprimanded me, probably because it was no longer his way but also because my mother immediately took a sympathetic approach to the tragic plight her eldest son was suffering at the hands of his monkey bastard of a brother. As I looked up to assay the shameful scene of repulsed relatives and strangers that Evan-the Edmund to my Edgar!-had pinned on me, I noted some extra disdain in the look on my grandpa’s face, suggesting that he hated for a meal to end in vomit even more than the average person. Dark runs the day that the favored grandson falls in his grandfather’s estimation.
"Pies on the Frontier"
As children, it seemed that we were always hearing about how much more strict authority figures had been in days past. This impression was buttressed by stories read to us in school, movies we watched, my Midwestern mom’s accounts of the nuns at her 1950s parochial school, and my Montanan dad’s recollections of his decidedly patriarchal, minister father.
A list of the memories I have heard my dad rehearse would be a short one, but, even so, the theme of his father’s strictness stuck out to me when I was young. For example: the time his brothers were dragged out from hiding under the bed to be spanked. Or was it he who was spanked? No matter. The austere feeling of their bygone household was unmistakable to me. One had only to ponder the time one of my dad’s brothers nearly threw up at the dinner table as a boy. One look from grandpa Art, however, was enough to coax those stray morsels back down that esophagus-the path God had surely intended for them.
Who was this man, whose authority extended even over bodily functions most of us would regard as involuntary? Our grandfather, or ‘granddad’ as he preferred to be called, seemed cheery and playful to my brothers and me during our annual visits to Bozeman and Lewistown, Montana. He would meet us at our Uncle Norm’s place by the mountains, wearing comical, enormous sunglasses. And who in our family could forget the immortal sound of his sonorous, bouncing “Ha Ha Ha” laugh, which he let out every single time the pieces of the game Booby Trap went flying (as they inevitably did)?
Well, it is my brother Evan whom I can thank for offering me a small glimpse of my grandfather as my father might have experienced him. One day, the greater part of our extended family decided to dine at the apparently reputable ‘Frontier Pies.’ I imagine I had untold amounts of fun with my cousins, particularly Annie and Jesse, who are basically still the coolest people I’ve ever met. I don’t recall what I ate, but it wouldn’t be difficult to deduce given that the complete list of foods I liked ran as follows: mac and cheese, pepperoni pizza, beanie weenie, hot dogs, hamburgers, tacos, and the occasional lasagna or spaghetti if there was enough cheese involved.
After the meal, we kids got admittedly rambunctious. We were running around between the tables, probably causing hell for the wait staff. I imagine our parents and aunts and uncles weren’t too concerned, though, considering they had also encouraged us to wage Nerf Blast-a-Ball wars in the Yogo Inn, where we stayed. Montanans are clearly a conscientious people.
With all the open space and relatives there in Frontier Pies, I must have been having the time of my life. Evan apparently was too, because he decided to hop on my back and support all of his growing girth by grappling on to my one and only windpipe. As those of you with windpipes already know, these important parts of our anatomy allow us to breathe. As not everyone necessarily knows-as I am going to generously assume Evan did not-abruptly cranking on this indispensable source of oxygen can cause one to expel the contents of one’s stomach, however happily they may have gone down.
I believe my tears started to pour out of me before my frontier meal did, because I remember shaking Evan off and stumbling over to the table where my mother was sitting with my grandparents having what must have been a nice talk. As I looked up at grandpa Art before the fateful spewing, I realized just how much my fortunes-and all of our spirits-were about to turn. Art may very well have tried to give me his old “Don’t you dare throw up here” look, but alas, times had changed, and young bodies could no longer be counted on to obey the dictates of authority. I rarely puked as a kid, but when I did, I seemed to do so with all of my being. This wholeheartedness often made breathing difficult, and this case was no exception, especially after I had been so thoroughly and thoughtlessly choked.
As usual, all praise is due to my mother, who tried nobly-vainly-to catch all the brown fluid and chunks in napkins (too few! too few!) before any more got on my grandparents’ laps. Grandpa Art never reprimanded me, probably because it was no longer his way but also because my mother immediately took a sympathetic approach to the tragic plight her eldest son was suffering at the hands of his monkey bastard of a brother. As I looked up to assay the shameful scene of repulsed relatives and strangers that Evan-the Edmund to my Edgar!-had pinned on me, I noted some extra disdain in the look on my grandpa’s face, suggesting that he hated for a meal to end in vomit even more than the average person. Dark runs the day that the favored grandson falls in his grandfather’s estimation.