Whew! Its official! Christmas 2008 is over except for the store returns. I didn't do too badly this year...only a few things have to go back.

I really really tried to keep it down this year to a 'reasonable' amount of gifts. The problem is, my 'reasonable' may not be the next guys. I do the best I can.

We all went out to the beach house for a few days to test it out and see if we could survive the close quarters. It went well. The house lends itself to many little pockets of activity. If any one of us had had about enough togetherness, we could find a place to hide for awhile. The weather was lousy most of the time. The sun didn't come out until the last day. We did have a pinochle tournament and I'm proud to say Stephanie's and my team came in second place. I do believe the cards were rigged though. We shoulda been first.

On day two I tried to maim myself. Stephanie had asked me for something that I happened to have in the car, so I volunteered to go get it. The problem started when I chose NOT to get dressed first. I was in my Sponge Bob Squarepants jammies with fuzzy Ugg style boots. I figured no one would see me, so I stealthily worked my way outside in the rain. As I closed the door of the car after retrieving said item, I heard the unmistakable sound of a car engine coming up the street. I scurried (or tried to) up the concrete steps and on the third step I slipped. I hit both knees, my hand and my lip (of all things). I had a mental flash of having to go to the hospital in my Sponge Bob pants with a fat lip and a broken leg. I think I said a really bad word.

Luckily I was just bruised and scratched. I've tried milking it for sympathy but the family will not comply. I do have a great bruise all the way down my right shin that I'm willing to show to anyone who feigns an interest. When I hit my lip I was rather hoping I would knock out one or both of my front caps. They really need replacing. When they were put in well over 35 years ago the dentist said they would need to be replaced in 5 years. They are 'on the list'. Oh well...

My brother Dick pointed out to me that I had misspelled his wife Katherine's name. There is some irony in that because I named my first daughter after her (Amy Catherine). I know how its spelled. I changed the first letter for Amy just to be a little different. I just had a brain knot. Those happen more and more these days. Soon I'll have macrame' knots for a brain. (That's a really dumb joke - but it's all I got.)

I hope everyone had a good holiday and will be safe for New Years. I love you all.

I've gotten a few comments from people regarding my posts. I'd love to hear what everyone thinks so far (and correct my errors...) so please leave your comments as we go. I'd appreciate it.

Love, Deb

David

In many ways, talking about my twin brother David is harder than writing about my other brothers. I thought of us as a unit when I was a kid, because we were always referred to under the collective term "the twins". We were always together. We played together, we watched cartoons together - we even had our little imaginary friends together. We named them Picky and Bozo. I realize now that we must have been referring to Pinky Lee and Bozo the clown.

I remember my mother making us "matching' outfits of a shirt for David and a dress for me out of the same fabric. I was convinced that when we dressed alike no one could tell us apart - the twins on tv all looked alike so we must also. I thought the only difference between us was that I had long hair. (I didn't consider that other difference at that young age.) After the neighbor girls cut my hair I tried to make my mom feel better by saying "Well, at least now no one will be able to tell David and me apart!". I don't think it worked.

David is an incredible musician. We both began music lessons with Clyde Heck when we were about 12 years old. (I had taken piano earlier, but that didn't work out.) David learned the drums and I learned (or tried to learn) guitar. It didn't work out for me, but David took to it like a fish to water. He started playing with an accordion group first (hooray for the Polka!) and then started a garage band. Over the years he has continued to play and still does to this day with all sorts of different music groups from country to reggae to blues and rock.

Back in the day before electronic drumming, the guy keeping the beat was key to a bands' success. Once at a high school talent show David's band at the time played and rocked the house. A newspaper article ran a picture of David and commented on his 13 minute drum solo!

David also got all the artistic talent. From a very young age he could duplicate cartoon characters while I was stuck on stick figures. It seemed to be one of those things that just came naturally for him and he was constantly drawing.

He also has a natural mechanical ability. He was always working on cars, and I don't recall anyone ever teaching him how. He just did it. For several years he made a living as a mechanic. He is currently self-employed as a contractor. As with other things he's been involved with or done over the years, his work is meticulous.

He married Debbie Boyer right after she graduated from high school. They had two children, Chad and Jenny. The marriage didn't work out and he later met and married Fran. For several years Dave and Fran ran a small restaurant/wine bar in downtown Ventura. They sold that business a few years ago.

As with my older brothers, I've barely scratched the surface of who David is. I think it's going to take me a lot longer than I originally thought so I'm going to intersperse stories about our family with posts about my day-today stuff.

(the picture at the top of the page is my brother Jim, Grandmother Mabel Stewart, Bill, Dick, David and me)

Baby, its cold outside...

I'm going to take a short break in my brother introductions to talk about the weather. That's right...I said weather. At the moment its 17 degrees outside and dropping. That's just wrong on so many levels. There is an inch of solid ice on the roads (or more) and snow in all the yards. Even the beach had snow (this pic is my yard in Lincoln City, the beach one shows the snow on the hill above the beach - it had already melted off the sand by the time I got there.)

My feet are cold and my lips are dry.

OK, enough whining. Time to get to the next post.

Wow! I hadn't realized it had been nearly 2 weeks since I posted last! I guess the Christmas shopping season is taking more of my time than I thought. I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas, but I'll talk about that another day.Today I want to talk about my brother Richard.

Even saying 'Richard' sounds funny to me. My brother is and always has been Dickie to me. I suppose I sometimes call him Dick in front of other people, but he's 'Dickie". Dick was born September 10, 1943 - 18 months after Bill. (See, I'm trying to act grown up and take the 'ie' off both brother's names.)

Dick was the kind of kid who always brought home the stray dogs. I remember Ginger best of all. Dang she was a good and smart dog! As happened with many of our animals, she got hit by a car on Victoria Ave. It was a sad day for all of us.

I think Dick and I are the most alike temperamentally. We are both pragmatic. We can usually see both sides of an argument. We are generally non-reactive in many situations, preferring to consider all our options. We probably would have both been good counselors or psychologists.

Dick is also a protector of family, friends, and extended family. He's the kind of guy who will take on the practical task of paying bills or fighting with insurance companies on behalf of someone else when they are ill. He's the guy you call with a tax question or in many cases to do your taxes. He has been with Bill every step of his illness and recovery, taking over and acting as an advocate for Bill - pushing the envelope with doctors and health care workers to get the best possible response for his brother. Now THAT is love.

Dick married Kathryn Louise Beaver on August 9, 1962. He was 18, almost 19. She was 16. They have two children, Tammy and Rick. Dick worked for the State of California as a land surveyor and also at our parents liquor store to help make ends meet. They bought a house after a few years of marriage and still live in it to this day.

Dick developed a significant drinking problem during the early years of his marriage that colors a lot of the memories of those times. After a health scare nearly 20 years ago, he quit drinking entirely. As I mentioned we are very alike in temperament and both have "addictive" persona lites (try and take my diet coke and lose a hand!) His current 'addiction' is spending time at the Indian Casino. He enjoys it very much and so does Kathy. Thankfully, the only health concern with the casino is second hand smoke, which most of the time you can avoid.

Since our parents died, Dick's home has become my 'home base' in California. Partly because its nearest to where we grew up, but also because of the hospitality he and Kathy have offered me and my family.

I'm proud of my brother for the challenges he overcame, it wasn't easy. I look up to him with love, respect and admiration.

-more later.

Following suit as I have been so far, its time to talk about my brother Bill. William. Billie to me even if he is old enough for Medicare. Since Jim was away in the Navy, Bill stepped into the big brother role very naturally. My brother Dick is just 18 months younger than Bill so they have always been very close. My earliest memories of Billie seem to be of him cleaning the house. I believe I mentioned earlier that mom chose other pursuits and Billie had a need for order. By the way, he is very good at cleaning. I was jealous of Bill and Dick when they were allowed to got to "Teen Time", a dance held at the school for teenagers in the neighborhood. I wanted to go to the party, too! I can remember standing on the porch of our house looking miserably after them as they rode their bikes off to the dance. Billie was 9 when David and I were born. The same age I was when Bill's first child was born. More of that later.

Somewhere around the age of 10, Bill fell out of a tree and broke both of his arms. Family lore has it that someone ran home and told mom that Billie had broken his neck. She hurdled a very high fence (mom was barely 5'1") and got to him in a hurry. There are some great pictures in the family album of Billie with casts on both arms grinning. with all the neighborhood kids around him.

Bill married Linda very young and had a son right away, followed shortly by a daughter and then another son. A fourth son was born in 1969. The marriage ended when the children where teenagers. He later married Diane in 1983.

When I think of my brother Bill I think first of his wry sense of humor. He's just downright funny. Over the years he has proven his ability with home projects and has great pride in his home. He has done beautiful and meticulous work.

In the last few years Billie has faced some very difficult health problems. His dear wife Diane and brother Dick have been with him every step of the way. Sadly, because of the distance, I'm not able to be with him as much as I would like, but he's never far from my thoughts. I spent some time with him shortly after his first surgeries. I knew my brother was on the road back when he started cracking jokes. Really silly jokes. Just the kind a kid sister loves to hear.

He's come so far, and I am fiercely proud of him. It's possible he won't be able to do some of the things he had hoped to do at this time of his life and that's disappointing. But he's here with us, and he is greatly loved.

More later.

I've written a little about Daddy and Mom. I'll just go down the brother list now, one at a time starting with my brother James. Jimmy to me, now and always - Jimmy.The definition of "big brother". On the day I was born, Jimmy graduated from Ventura High School. I'm not exactly sure how he felt about being pushed to the side on that very important day in a young man's life. If he resented us choosing that day to emerge, we never knew.

The fact that Jimmy graduated at all was a minor family miracle. In his elementary school days, he simply decided school was no longer a need in his life so he quit going. Perhaps he was acting out since dad had remarried and added 2 new brothers to the family by that time. Regardless of the reasons, he simply quit. He has told of some of the methods he would use to leave school in those days, all of which were hilarious to me. Perhaps he'll write of those sometime. I wish he would I'm sure I can't do them justice. After a visit to Juvenile Hall - Juvi as we called it - he decided perhaps school wasn't as bad as jail. Mom used to joke that once he went back to school he wouldn't quit. Jimmy is the first college graduate in the family for as far back as I have researched.

Jimmy went into the navy not too long after graduation at the same time as our cousin Ben Walters. Since Jim was away in the navy, I don't have many memories of him in my youngest years but I do remember the family driving to San Francisco to pick him up when he got out of service. My aunt Alma (who scared the bejesus out of me - she was a MEAN woman.) lived there with her husband. Her daughters and their families lived nearby. One of the extended cousins was named Sherry. She was everything a 5-year-old Debby thought of as cool. She was my age, but she lived in the city. At least she was cool until I thought MY big brother Jimmy paid her more attention than me. Ah yes, my first experience with jealousy. I don't recall how it was resolved, but I probably whined or sulked until I got the proper amount of attention.

Jimmy and his dear wife Gloria were a big part of my early teen years. They would allow me to visit their home (first in Ojai, then in Exeter California). For a week or two at a time. I always felt welcome in their home. They always allowed me to bring a friend if I wanted to. It was my time away from the sameness of parents who worked all the time, and also a look at how a traditional family could function. I learned a lot from both of them, way too much to list here. I am forever grateful. I didn't realize at the time what a challenge it must have been to have me there, but I never felt it if there were problems. I only felt loved and protected. I also got to be with my nieces, and later my nephew. I cherish those times to this day.

My brother Jimmy is above all else a good man. He has a sense of humor that is legendary. He also has a bit of a temper that is also legendary. I recall a look on his face when I was a child and he came CHARGING out of the bathroom with a newspaper in his hand ready to KILL! It seems my brother Dick has chosen an..uh...inopportune time to set off a firecracker right outside the bathroom window. I can still see his face....eyes bulging, breathing fire and looking for Dickie to do him bodily harm.

Ah, good times.

As with my other posts, this one just scratches the surface. I hope to fill in a lot of details as I go along. Have a great day.