A Tribute To My Sister

A Tribute to My Sister


A warm spring day, you, Mary, and myself, sitting on the porch steps. We were young, 5 and 6 maybe. Mary dared you to eat a tulip. The tulips were very pretty and were planted on each side of the steps. You ate one, my heart stopped beating for 2 miniutes i am sure. You said, "yummm", Mary eat one." I was thinking this was not a good idea to do this, therefore, I did not eat any tulips. In a short amount of time Mary and you, had eaten everyone of the tulip flowers. Oh my, out comes our aunt to sit and talk with us a bit. Suddenly, she said, "what happened to the tulips?" Never one to hold back from telling on someone else, I said, "Mary and Patty ate them Aunt Ethel, I did not". She looked at me for about 2 minutes, seemed like an hour, and said, "what did you do sandee?" I watched them". No sooner were the words out of my mouth, I knew this was not good somehow for me. Sure enough, she said "well you are the oldest, and you should have come and told me that they were eating the flowers off the tulips." I was only the oldest by 15 months, but none the less, I went to bed without supper.

Mary was Aunt Ethel's granddaughter, and very spoiled, being an only child. Mary, you, and I, would spend long summer afternoons playing dress up. The clothes we had to choose from were many. I always wanted to wear the gypsy skirt and blouse. They were beautiful. We would pretend to meet for lunch, and we had cokes that we measured exactly 1/2 full for each of our glasses. Mary always got first choice of what to wear, but she was nice about it.

I remember a day, at school, when I was in the third grade, I was given a piece of bubble gum by one of my friends in class. Naturally I got caught with it. The teacher, made me go from class to class, standing in front of all the children and chew the gum. It was awful, but I was so ashamed when we got to your class (1st grade) and when the teacher brought me into the class your said, proudly, "that is my sister." And, to both of our shame, the teacher told your class that I had gotten caught chewing gum, and would now stand in front of the class and chew it. You laid you head down on the your desk and cried. I am so sorry.

I remember that we walked to the middle school every morning, rain or shine. On a particular morning, I found a cigarette on the road. I was only eight years old, but had been secretly smoking Uncle Oscar's Pal Mal, non filter cigarettes off and on. I picked up the cigarette and put it in the middle of my math book. During the day, we had math, and low and behold, the teacher had left her math book at home that day. She picked mine up, and as she did, it fell open to the pages the cigarette was in. Oh my, i stopped breathing. She, much smarter then I, wrote a note, placed the cigarette in the envelope and gave it to you to make sure Aunt Ethel got the note. All the way home, i begged, pleaded, and offered up many chores that I would do for you, if you just did not give the note to Aunt Ethel. Finally, at the end of the drive way, you agreed to not give it to her. Bless your heart.

At the back of the property there was a spot of trees and weeds, we named it Wolf's Island. One day when we went there, we heard a mewing sound. We looked and found four puppies (belonging to a wild dog or wolf.) We were so excited we each grabbed two and took them to the house. At the house, there were two floors, and the downstairs was called the summer kitchen. It was also set up like a living room with couches and chairs, tv. We played with them for a long time, hugging kissing them. We heard Aunt Ethel coming down the stairs, and quickly shoved the dogs under the couch and and sat in front of them, so they could not get out. Aunt Ethel went about getter supper, and as a puppy would make a sound, you and I would pretend to make the sound. This went on for about 20 minutes, until the pups discovered they could get out by the back of the couch. Out they came, and both jumped up and said, "look puppies." As if they had got there by themselves. She made us take them back and hoped that the mother would take them after they had human smell on the.

There was a wonderful elderly woman who lived in a small trailer on Aunt Ethel's property named, Aunt Carrie Kodingstein. Aunt Ethel did her grocery shopping for her, as she was unable to. We always went to Dolly Madison, and Aunt Ethel would buy her a lovely coconut cake. One day, after shopping, Aunt Ethel put the cake on top of the cabinet, to take over to Aunt Carrie, after Ethel's sister left. I kept thinking of the cake, and finally climbed up to the cake, and opened a little hole in it, and took my finger and scrapped icing, oh it was so good. Like an insane kid, I took more. And suddenly, to my horror the cake was half gone. You came in and I said, "Patty take some cake". And sadly, you did. Aunt Ethel caught us shortly after that, and since we were full of cake, she made us eat cottage cheese, yuck, and off to bed in the middle of the day for us, my dear Patty.

We always watched Dick Clark's dance show, and danced and got goofy from fun. For some reason, which excapes me now, we decided to cut your hair. We got the scissors, a towel to put on you, and my very first cut, was awful. A big hole in the back of your head suddenly had pieces of hairs and inch long. I was horrified, and just starting laughing, and couldn't quit laughing. I kept saying it looked good. Oh my gosh, to this day I cut my dogs hair, they run too. My daughter, Kelly did the exact thing to me when i was 30. She was laughing so hard she had to sit down on the floor.

One very nice day, when we were teenagers, we caught a bus and went to Louisville, from Jeffersonville. A big thing to do at our ages. The bus let us off on 4th street. People were coming and going quickly, there were exciting stores to go into and look at merchandise, and plan a wish list. After shopping we stopped to eat lunch at Frisches, and it was amazing. We sat in a booth where you decided what you wanted, then you picked of a telephone that was in each booth, and ordered our meal, wow how exciting that was. The booth had a juke box at each table and you could pick out and play music for a quarter. We ate hamburgers and fries, with a cherry coke.

I have many good, or funny, memories of our childhood, and I choose to forget anything else. Because I love you, I will keep the memories alive for as long as I live. I am very sick with copd, oxygen, etc., i cannot leave the house. When I went to make coffee the morning after I heard you were so sick, a thought crossed my mind, like a gentle breeze, "I will not be alone when I die, you will be there waiting for me." I love you.