Brotherly Love

As my older brother, Jim could do no wrong. Most of the time. But when we were young, Deni and I were willing participants to Jim's maniacal plans. The blue house on Busey had two torture chambers: the attic and the basement back room. These were ideal, isolated locations where Jim carried out some of his most deviant forms of torture.

In the attic was a section lined with mattresses. Jim would bribe us (Deni and I) up there with some kind of treat, and then make us play football. Sounds innocent enough. He even played on his knees to give us a fighting chance. But when he made a touchdown (made it to the end of the mattresses) the torture began. He would get the opponent down on her back, pin her arms with his knees and spit on her face. Ugh.

We weren't the only ones. The attic window was the test for sailing. We had a little woven basket that Jim tied one of our Dad's handkerchiefs to. Then he'd catch a toad and put him in the basket. We'd drop him out of the attic window and watch him sail down. Then we'd run outside, find the frog and repeat. At least it wasn't us.

The basement was the chamber for hockey torture. He would pay us candy to run along the back wall of the back room while he practiced his slap shots. We were always willing participants...until mom found out.