Forget baseball. Too pedestrian. We played games like tying a sib to a tree and setting a fire NEAR her feet. That's the Royal "we" since I looked on in abject terror, fascinated by the nerve of the Big Girls. I can only imagine what she did to deserve such a payback. Arthur Miller was banned in our house. Having sisters who were nearly adults was trippy. That's how I learned to smoke. The theory, get a potential tattler to participate and she can't tell. They had mottos like, "Tattletales don't live long."
There was a stint when one might be disrobing, preparing to take a nice bubble bath, only to be grabbed and thrown outside, necked as a jaybird, to the sound of a turning lock. Faces twisted with maniacal laughter would peer out as you desperately beat on the door. My sister, Mel had to high tale it around to the back of the house becasue of heddlights approaching and had the further indignity of the family dog nipping her in the, well, you can guess. I havae to admit that WAS riotously funny.
You once told me you could tell I was the result of sibling torture. You don't know the half of it. My sister Gloria used to throw my books out of car windows, leaving me with nothing to read and she was one of the ones who could get away with murder, almost. She never went that far. I am still alive. I was serious and studious and very dramatic, you know, fun to torture. That was one of the nicer things she did.
I beleive, the more kids who participate in a crime, the more dispersed the blame. Parents know someone is lying but with everyone accusing everyone else at the same time, fingering the perp becomes less important than restoring quiet. Parents don't want justice, they want silence.
And yet, I had a happy childhood.
Go figure.
Bobbi
http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver
