The Life of Donald Lee Buckingham (1938-2002)

Our Early Years, 1940 -1950

 

 For ten years I considered my brother Don to be the toughest kid on the block, the one others looked up to, the one nobody messed with. He was my hero, my protector. Of course that was the opinion of a child nearly void of life’s experiences, and whose physical realm was limited to one city block in a small Indiana town. I eventually began to see Don as one who possessed both strengths and frailties, and as that knowledge accumulated I readjusted my judgments of his position among us fellow mortals.

My image of his stature was not transformed by one single event, but by small incidents that tended to confuse me. I thought of him as being all knowing and capable. Then a dog appeared in the neighborhood one day. It was a cute little puppy, no more than few weeks old, with a fish hook embedded in its tongue. The other kids all cleared a path as Don came onto the scene. Someone said “He’ll fix it”. He knelt down, opened the dog’s mouth, and tugged lightly at the short piece of line attached to the hook. He looked again, tugged again, and then announced he could not get it out. I had witnessed my brother’s first failure. That happened in 1946 when he was eight years old. I was six when I experienced my first disillusionment.

I thought of him as being invincible, but that illusion was also shattered. One day we were walking on the backside of our block, on the street running parallel to Lafontain, our home street. A boy crossed from the neighboring block and tried to start a fight by standing on the walk blocking our way. I’d never seen him before and I don’t think Don knew him. Don edged to the side attempting to step around the boy, but the fellow crowded him, hooking his leg around Don’s, trying to trip him. He persisted but Don wouldn’t fight. The thought flitted through my mind that maybe Don was scared of him. The bully finally left after some taunting and verbal abuse. I noticed he was bigger and probably a year older than Don. When you’re nine or ten a year can make a heap of difference. I  understood why he wouldn‘t fight, but it still hurt.

 

Don had a potential for being an athlete with few peers. There was a lot of natural athletic ability in him, but he didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in sports. When he was in the seventh or eighth grade he tried out for the Central Junior High football team. I fully expected him to be playing first string, but he was relegated to the sidelines in every game. Most players had real football jerseys, but Don wore an old sweater stretched over his shoulder pads. I can yet visualize him kneeling there, fidgeting and eager to get in the game, but hardly every called. I still think the coach played favorites. I knew Don’s abilities, had seen him in action on dirt lots before and after. He was a good athlete, could have played varsity, could have been a champ, but he didn’t get a chance, and never went out for sports again.

The First Separation, 1956-1958

 

I am mainly an optimist about life’s adventures, but I remember the first time I had a bit of unease about the future. That was when Don went off to college. The two of us had been as close as brothers can be through the early years. I don’t honestly remember the anxiety I must have felt, too many years have passed, but do remember what it had been like. Those first sixteen years could be described as like those of Siamese twins, joined at the hip. We did everything together, from piano lessons, to sporting events, to family chores.

There were really three of us, inseparable for years. Lamar Hammer became like a brother, the third musketeer, after he and Don met in the sixth grade at Central. During those years we walked many miles together, miles in passage between our homes, miles to school and city events, and more miles exploring the countryside along Wildcat Creek east of town. Our separation came after they graduated from high school in 1956. Lamar signed for a hitch in the Air Force and left within a month. Don enrolled at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana and went missing in the fall. My life took a drastic turn.

I’m not certain which of us was most affected by the separation. I was on my own for the first time and forced onto a path that was probably better for me. It gave me a taste of independence I’d never known, and set me on a path leading to greater self-confidence. I returned to familiar Kokomo High School as a junior that fall, but I had to do things on my own, make new friends, and find my own way.

I tried out for the football team but discovered that one-hundred and forty pounds doesn’t carry much weight in the sport. I started going to the Teen Canteen after school and on weekend nights. The place occupied a large space on the second floor of a building on the town square and had a free jukebox, a dance floor, ping pong and pool tables. I found my niche high-jumping on the track team that spring, and surprised myself in discovering I was a better-than-average cross-country runner in my senior year.

Don went off to Purdue, but seemed to develop a disliked for it almost immediately. Maybe he was too alone and in a place that was too far from home? Lafayette lies fifty miles west of Kokomo. Purdue University has two main schools, Agriculture and Engineering. Don enrolled as an engineering student. In 1956 engineering was a popular career choice. It seemed to be a national goal to produce more engineers, and that is what Dad wanted for Don. I’m not certain if Don wanted that. He and I didn’t talk much about such things, but he had been tracked in that direction for some time. It was always understood that both of us were going to college; he, being the oldest, was going to be an engineer. Nothing was ever hinted as to what my profession was to be, and no one asked Don what he wanted.

I think he was conflicted. Dad was not an overbearing person. He simply assumed Don would automatically want the same thing as he. Don was the oldest, the smartest, and the one with the most promise, so Dad put all of his aspirations on him, and the results were a life-long disappointment for both. I knew of Don’s unhappiness early on. He told me one night as we lay in bed that he didn’t want to go back, but he couldn’t tell Dad that because he would be letting him down.

Somewhere in the middle of the second year the school sent him home. Mom told me years later that he had been caught breaking into a teacher’s office. It was his second attempt and the campus police were waiting for him. He had been trying to find test copies. The school suspended him for the remaining of the year. I have always wondered if he might have done it so he could come home.  Don’s life started out with so much promise, but over the years it seemed to crumble, and I think it may have started there at Purdue with an unhappy situation and a bad decision. Don came home and we fell back into our routine as if he had never left. It may seem strange to many, but we never spoke of the incident, not then, not ever.

Don planned a bus trip to Mexico in June of 1958, right after I graduated from high school, and asked if I’d like to join him. It surprises me yet that I declined, but I had become more independent, developing my own interests and friendships, during the two years he was away. The relationship we had shared during those early years was forever changed, and the two of us became more like equals after that.

He headed south on a bus traveling all the way to Mexico City and Acapulco by himself. He was gone several weeks, and eventually hooked up and traveled with a guy he met on the bus. I no longer remember the fellow’s name, but the two exchanged letters for several years afterward. Don seemed to have had a good time, and told enough about the trip that, in retrospect, I wish I’d have gone with him. But I was traveling in my own universe, and not interested at the time. Instead, I spent my summer working at a small manufacturing shop owned by a family friend and hanging out at the local swimming pool nearly every evening.