While it is true that only five years
in time separated us, I always felt that there was a much larger gap. Mike was not just the big brother, but he was
also some sort of almost mythological creature who knew so much more than the
rest of us.
While I was busy playing, he had a
heavy load of responsibility to carry. I
was aware that he had to work part time, and in the summers, full time, while I
had little responsibility. I was very
much aware that he was just about all that stood between me (and my siblings)
and our drunken father. Mike was doing
adult things long before he should have had to do them.
Mostly, what I remember is that -
believe it or not - at least two of us had a very great experience living in
the small town of Goldendale, Washington.
Mike was working, winning accolades (he got the Baush and Lomb medal
for science when he graduated high school), playing small town high school football, and generally,
growing up. Dennis and I had the run of
the town, and spent many hours playing along the creek, or in the fields
nearby. That wonderful time (for Dennis and I) lasted from the when I
was in the fourth grade, until right after the school year ended after the
seventh grade.
Mike graduated from high school, one spring evening, and we were on a Greyhound bus that left Goldendale that same
night. The next thing I knew, we were
moving in with our paternal grandfather, in Tacoma. And, then, within a very few days, Mike was
gone. He joined the Army just as soon as
he could. This, by the way, would have
been 1959.
So, the next few years went by with
something missing from the family, but to be honest, I did not pay much
attention because I was coming into that age when the whole world must revolve
around the ego. Looking back now, I know
that I was likely one of the most egocentric teens ever, with time only for me,
my interests, and my few friends. I
suppose that had to do with a lousy home life more than I knew, but it was what
it was.
Mike came home (by which time, we had
moved out of Grandad's house, to at least three other rentals) after his hitch
in the Army ended, in 1962, when I was between my Sophomore and Junior years of
high school. Because of his presence,
our parents evidently felt that, for the first and only time in their married
lives, they could try to buy a home for the family. We then moved into the most wonderful house I
ever lived in, and I suspect that a portion of the burden and/or the qualifying
to buy the house, came from Mike.
Soon, though, he went his own way, but
not before he showed me some things that have stayed with me ever since. He came home from Germany with the first
console stereo I ever got my hands on, and actually listened to. He had a record collection that showed me
that recorded music was much more than 45 rpm records, and could provide a fidelity
of sound way better than those little RCA 45 rpm record players that were all I
knew up until that time.
He had record albums (LP's) featuring
Ray Conniff and John Gary and Les (and Larry) Elgart and artists with whom I
was most definitely not familiar. (I was
into whatever the local top 40 AM radio stations were playing at that
time). More important, his stereo had FM
radio, and FM was a whole 'nother ball game in 1962! So, as you can imagine, my music horizons
opened up, all of a sudden.
When Mike came home from his Army
stint, one of the first things he did was buy himself a car. And, not just any car, but a great big old
Chrysler. I can't be sure after all these
years, but I'd guess this was about 1951 or 52 Windsor. All I remember is that it was four doors,
two-toned, and very, very large. The
family car, at this time was a 1956 Chevy, also four door, and two-toned.
At some point in time, I know that I
still did not have a drivers license, so I think it was my Junior year of high
school, making this early 1964, I got Mike in trouble. The old man was not around; I'm thinking he
was in Steilacoom for his alcoholism.
One Friday evening, I wanted to go out with my friends, and needed the
car, but it was in the garage, with a dead battery. The garage was detached, and down a short,
steep incline from the side street (North 6th Street, for those who would like
to know), with the car facing inward.
This, by the way, was a car with an automatic transmission.
Don't ask me how, and don't ask me
why, but somehow I, a pimply 16 year old, persuaded big bro, Mike, the adult in
this scenario, to assist me with not only getting that damn car up and out onto
the street, but to push-start it with his car so I could get it started. We neither of us knew very much about cars,
but we did know that it takes a lot more to start a car with an automatic
transmission by pushing it, than it does a car with a standard transmission. Oh, and we knew that this was called
"starting a car on compression."
We managed to pull the family car out
of the garage, and onto the street, headed north, along the very narrow 6th
Street. Now, by this time, the sun was
mostly down, and a light rain began to fall.
For those who remember, 1950's cars all had a windshield wiper system
that depended on vacuum power, created by the running engine, to operate. So,
not only was I out of luck due to the dead battery, but until and unless that
engine was running, there would be no headlights and no wipers.
Remember, Mike was the adult here,
OK? The next stupid thing we did,
together, was start off, with his old boat of a Chrysler pushing me in that '56
Chevy. We did not get half a block
before I hit the rear end of a parked car!
I do not recall what kind of car it was, but it is very likely that it
was yet another large and heavy boat, like the two wrecks we created that
fateful night. The upshot? I did not go out that night. Mike spent a considerable time with a
cop. We were naturally set for court
appearances, and our mother had to go with me, since I was a minor. My punishment? By court order, I had to go get my driver
license! (Yes, like all 16 year olds,
this was something I wanted, anyway).
Now, let's jump ahead in time a bit,
to 1965, when I finally got fed up and left home. When it finally dawned on me that I had to
get out, I did not even think twice about where I was going (we must have
talked about this at some point), but I made one phone call to let Mike know
that I was on my way, and I took off from Moses Lake, Washington, where the
folks were then living, and headed for Seattle, where Mike and his first wife
took me in without, to my recollection, any thought or so much as a pause.
I believe it may have been during this
time that Mike provided me with one of the more valuable man-lessons he ever
did teach me. The manly art of cooking
outdoors, over charcoal. Question: When is the best time to cook outdoors? Mike's answer: Whenever the hell you want, even if you do live in the Pacific Northwest. Now, that may seem seriously simplistic to
you, but remember, we're talking about Seattle here. And, what does it do in Seattle, all the
time? That's right. It rains.
Mike's solution? Open up the
garage doors, the old school, double doors?
Heavy, wooden doors? And, put the
grill inside, out of the rain. Mike
taught me how to start a fire with charcoal, and minimal starter fluid. You see, he once sold Electrolux vacuum
cleaners, and he - naturally - knew all their little tricks. The one necessary for outdoor cooking had to
do with putting the hose into the exhaust side of the machine, something the
Electrolux was designed to do. That's
right. They don't just suck. They also blow.
Once you see that your charcoal has
caught, just a little bit, you direct that blowing, hot air at the
glow of your baby fire. Within a
relatively short period of time, that glow grows into actual flame, and before
you know it, the flame grows, and spreads until most of your charcoal is
involved, and then, shortly, you have a fire hot enough to grill steaks. And, by the way, in those days, steaks were
the only thing we ever grilled. Mike
taught me rules that have lasted for me ever since. Bring your steaks up to ambient temperature
before they go onto the fire. Make sure
all of your charcoal is committed, or involved in the fire, because you want
serious heat to properly grill a steak. This
is probably one of the single most important life lessons I ever got from my
big brother, and you better believe that I have passed these along to my sons
to the extent that they have shown some aptitude for this most manly of
activities.
Unfortunately, I only got to stay with
Mike and Alice for a few brief months, before Uncle Sam drafted
me. I think it was probably July when I
moved to Seattle, and I got my draft notice within weeks. During that time, however, I had the chance
to learn more things from my big bro. He
was by this time involved in remodeling the kitchen in their home up on Queen
Anne Hill, in Seattle, and I got to help his father-in-law with some of the
work. Mike was also doing some hobbyist
things in his basement, and I found that to be of great interest. Imagine this:
He was interested in steam engines, so he did research (and, keep in
mind, that research in those days meant going into books, real books). I think he based what he was doing on an
article in Popular Science, or Popular Mechanics, two magazines that we
all read at that time.
Above
is a simple illustration of what Mike built, using things he found around the
house.
He made all the parts for a miniature
steam engine out of available materials, by hand. He did not have a lot of tools, but he
fashioned a piston out of something, and a cylinder out of something else. I remember he used a penny for a flywheel,
and his fuel was rubbing alcohol, burned in an old tin can of some sort. It was ingenious, and I watched it take
shape, and was there the first time he actually ran it. I was, to say the least, impressed.
And, that was just one of the many
ways this man impressed me during his lifetime.
When he was interested in something, he would research it to the point
that he learned all he wanted to know, and from then on, he was an authority on
that subject.
I went off to the Army, and left my
car in Mike's garage for the duration, and he never once complained. When I met my future wife, and we planned to
marry, late in my Army enlistment, it was Mike I asked to be my Best Man. He and his wife traveled, at their own
expense, to El Paso, Texas (we got married at Ft. Bliss' main chapel), so that
he could stand up for me. I had no real
time to spend with him during that rushed time, but just his presence sort of
put a stamp on the event for me, and for my bride. I doubt if I ever really thanked him for
this, either.
When I took my discharge a few months
later, I did not hesitate, but packed my bride and our few possessions into our
car, and off we went to Seattle, to move in with Mike and Alice. We stayed with them for less than six months,
and again, spending time with him proved to be instructive, and also
entertaining. Blanca, my bride, has been
just as grateful as I for his open minded and open-handed welcome.
And, that car I had left with
him? It was a 1954 Ford, Crown Vic, with
a plexiglass roof. Again, neither Mike
nor I really knew anything about cars, but we did know that a car that had been
sitting for nearly three years might have some issues. So, between the two of us, here's what we did
to get my old Ford started: We removed
each of the eight spark plugs, and squirted a few drops of motor oil into each
cylinder. Then, we used cable to jump
start it from Mike's nearly new 1967 or '68 Mercury Cougar (one of the very
first of those fine cars, and meticulously cared for by Mike for many
years). This jump start seemed to be a
no-brainer to us, since we knew we were shooting twelve volts into a six volt
system. And, it worked like a frickin'
charm! That old Ford started right up,
hardly smoked at all, and I was back on the road just like that.
Mike's Cougar looked a bit
like this one.
It was Mike who let me use his Sears
account to buy the tools required so that I could go to work at Boeing, and it
was Mike again, who helped Blanca and I move into our own home, down at the
bottom of Queen Anne Hill, in Seattle's Fremont area. And, Mike, who bought a compressor, and came
over to our little house, along with little brother, David, to help me paint
that little house.
We only stayed in Seattle for about 14
months, before we headed back to El Paso, where we finally settled down and
started to raise a family. Mike and CJ
came to spend a bit of time with us in the early 70's, as they had decided to
try a new start in Texas. At one point,
during that brief stay, CJ had gone to visit family, I think in Minnesota, and
Mike was left alone with Blanca and I for a few days. I don't remember why or how we decided to do
this thing, but the two of us went drinking across the border to an area that
we still refer to as Zaragoza, Mexico (immediately across the border from what
used to be Ysleta, Texas, was the tiny Mexican village of Waterfill, which was
mostly stores and bars). I remember we
drank Singapore Slings up to the time we came back across to our house in El
Paso, and then we got serious about our drinking.
Actually, we were not serious, because
we decided to play some game where we each had to invent a drink that could
have anything in it, as long alcohol was involved. I only remember the drinking and some of the
ingredients, and have no recollection of what decided who got to mix and who
had to drink, OK? I do recall one drink
that we named (of course we had to not only create an original drink, but we
named them, too) something like "A Fart In A Sleeping Bag." It had, among other things, instant coffee
granules, and perhaps a dash of tomato juice (or paste or sauce or ketchup). I think the main alcoholic beverage we had,
upon which to base our inventions, was most likely Bacardi Superior, the clear
one. We put our hearts and souls into
these inventions, along with everything we could find in the kitchen, and we
did manage to get just a bit stinko. I
don't recall who won, but I know we both benefited greatly from the
experience.
A few years later, just to illustrate
one of the ways in which Mike was special, I had graduated from Nursing School,
in El Paso, and I had to travel, on my own hook, to Austin, in order to take
what we called the "State Boards," the exam for Nursing
licensure. I suppose they were called
the 'Boards' because this was two days of testing administered by the State
Board of Nurse Examiners. At any rate,
for those who do not know Texas geography, it is over six hundred miles from El
Paso, to Austin.
There was no question of trying to
bear the cost of flying. Hell, I was a
recent graduate, with two kids at the time!
So, we had no choice but to drive.
Another story could be inserted here, but since it does not concern
Mike, we'll skip it. The main thing to
understand here is that I had just gotten our car out of the shop, where the
engine had been rebuilt. This was
February of 1977. The Interstate (I-10)
was still under construction between El Paso and San Antonio, so our trip was
made in our 1969 VW Bug, with a brand new engine (that had not yet been broken
in; and, breaking in new engines was important in those days).
Well, we made it to Austin, and found
a cheap motel on what I now believe was South Congress Street, just a few blocks from the site where
statewide testing was to be done. I
think this may have been the Palmer Auditorium, but I no longer remember. As I recall, the testing was conducted over
two full days, on a Thursday and Friday.
As soon as I finished the last part of the test, Blanca picked me up
(actually, she had been pretty much on her own for those two days, in a strange
town, with little or no money), and we stopped at a gas station to fill up, and
I bought a case of the cheapest beer we could find. This was likely Texas Pride, a particularly
vile brew that was indeed cheap.
We had already decided to drive home
to El Paso through Del Rio, where Mike and CJ were then living. So, we got onto I-35, headed for San Antonio,
and then, found US 90, going west through Uvalde, to Del Rio. I do not recall if we bothered to call ahead
to warn Mike and CJ, but I do know that it was not very early when we finally
got to Del Rio. The first thing I
remember, after our arrival, is that Mike proceeded to help me finish off that
case of beer, and while we were sitting on the floor, he got out an Atlas, and
satisfied his curiosity about the journey that Blanca and I were making.
What he was looking for, and what he
found, was that, in order for me to take my State Boards, I had traveled a
distance equivalent to crossing four or five states back east. This was a pretty
large and costly undertaking for a new graduate with a family. Fortunately, at some point in time since
those days, Texas did modernize so that
today's graduates can take the test (which is no longer called State Boards, by
the way) close to home. But, the point
of this little anecdote is to illustrate what kind of guy my big brother
was. Something struck his wonder, so he
went to the source, in this case an Atlas.
Beginning in the late 90's, Blanca and
I started to visit Costa Rica, and asked Mike and CJ to join us down there on
one of our visits. They did so, and fit
right in with a group of mostly Blanca's relatives, in 2005. Later, Blanca and I retired and moved to
Costa Rica, and Mike and CJ came to visit us in our little house in 2010 or
2011. We really enjoyed showing them our
little piece of that tiny country, and it was very special to us how well they
fit in, and - for me - it was gratifying to be able to show Mike some things
that perhaps he did not know before. An
important thing to note here is that he always kept an open mind, and he was
always willing to try new things.
Over the years, Mike always stood for
so much more than I ever was. He was the
father that I wanted to please, and from whom I wanted recognition. God knows none of us ever got much of
anything from the old man. When people
would ask me if I knew an honest man, Mike was the first person who came to
mind. He never professed much by way of
any organized religion, but you know, in my mind, big brother Mike was the most
moral man I ever knew.
But, he was more than that, as I'm
sure all who knew him can attest. He was
the one I thought of when I encountered some new and very stupid thing, because
I knew he'd get a kick out of it. He was
the one I tried to memorize jokes for, so that I could recount them to him the
next time I saw him, or spoke to him.
He was the one person I always tried to make laugh, if you know what I
mean. While it is true that it was easy
to make him laugh, I always tried extra hard to say witty or funny things just
for him. For one thing, you have to
admit that when Mike laughed, he laughed with his whole being, and everybody
knew he was around. Not only was it a
great pleasure to make him laugh, but he always had a line, or a joke to make
YOU laugh, too.
And,
maybe that brings us back to what counted, at least for me. I know that the words I posted on my Facebook
the day he died were these: "He
Made Me Laugh."
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