Steve

A blonde haired, blue eyed little boy with a flat top haircut... my memories of my brother Steve as a child start here. He was definitely all boy!

He drove a blue metal pedal car with red rims. (OK, so his taste in vehicles has improved over the years.) He was the only boy in a house full of girls and he was spoiled because of it. I loved to spoil Steve. We played Hot Wheels cars for hours. The cool orange snap together race tracks would start in the Sun Room, go through the Living Room and end up in the Family Room. The best track route started on the desk and ended up with cars rolling into the hallway. We were aces at car racing, but of course he always won.

We used to get in trouble for digging up the grass around the steps, but the dump truck couldn't get through the little bare spot that was already there. We totally killed everything in the flower circle, but we needed the dirt to make hills and roads for the trucks and cars. We had to make everything as real as possible, and you all know hills are a must for trucks to move and drive on.

So lets talk mowing the grass... It's funny how the front yard ended up mowed in the perfect pattern for a baseball diamond. Guess we were pretty creative. When we got the power mower rather than the old push mower we could make even better base lines. The telephone pole was first base, the first tree on the right was second base, the sticky pine tree was third, and the rock was home plate. Did you ever notice how the flower circle was in the perfect spot for the pitchers mound? But thank God we kept the push mower, because when we were mowing during a tornado I think it was the only thing that kept me from blowing away. We didn't want to stop until we finished or the grass would end up two different heights. Steve got in the house in time, but I can still rememebr my Mom yelling to me to get in the house before I blew away! There I was, hanging on to the push mower and trying to wrap one arm around a tree. That was some really bad wind!

Kite flying was awesome. I had a kite shaped like a black bat. It flew out as far as the string was long. Then the line snapped and it disappeared. Steve flew a blue one that got up so high we could hardly see it anymore. The gross part was flying them from the field next to the house. There were mice and rats in that field. Need I say more?

Which leads to the tree fort. It wasn't built in a tree like you would think, it was built on the back of a huge sign that was attched to the sign shop that was behind our house. We worked on that thing for days. Finally, Dad, Steve and I slept in it one night. Well, lets say part of a night... you see Mom and Marcia decided to open our second floor bedroom window and throw ice cubes at the fort during the night. Having remembered the rats and mice in the field by day, and now sleeping above that same field by night, we thought the ice cubes were rats, and took off running to the house for cover. The creepy part is, as I got down the ladder and was running for the house, bare foot because we were supposed to be sleeping, I stepped on a live rat! OMG... I can still feel that! So ended the sleeping in the tree fort. I don't think any of us ever even went in it again after that.

Being the only boy also meant Steve got stuck being the "Daddy" for us when we played babies with our dolls. Not his favorite thing to do at any age! But we made it up to him when he knocked down the Christmas tree one Christmas...

Let's talk about the time Marcia locked Steve out of the house while she was babysitting. He decided to get in the house by kicking in the basement window. Well, the window hit the oil gauge on the oil tank full of heating oil. The tanked had just been filled, and now it broke, sending a full tank of oil all over the basement. Not a good day for Marcia or Steve... But once it was all cleaned up, we could skate again in the basement. Big laps around the furnace, over and over and over again...

When Dan and I first came home after being married, something had happened to that little blue eyed boy. There was fuzz on his lip and the weirdest deep voice coming from his mouth. My "little" brother was gone as I watched him pull luggage from the trunk of the car. Where the heck did all those muscles come from? What did you do to my "little" brother. We went to watch him play football. He and Dan had golf in common so he was deep in conversation about golf everytime they got together.

Now, he's still there for me. Maybe we don't play Hot Wheels cars anymore, but I bet if I got him some, we would! I love you Steve. Happy Birthday!!!