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.