Yep, I remember you standing outside my door asking to play.  I used to play Star Wars figures with Sandy a lot until we were twelve or thirteen.  It was a pretty regular thing.  I’d go to her house or she’d come to mine.  Then we hit that awkward age where we didn’t know that to do.  As far as you asking to play, I don’t remember a specific time because it happened more than once.  There was a fair amount of, “Can I play too?”  It wasn’t a bad thing, but at the time it pissed me off.  It was just one of those little sister wanting to play with big brother things.


This story’s a classic.  Remember when I convinced you to let me give you a hair cut with the hedge clippers?  You were five or six, and I don’t know how I talked you into it.  I didn’t threaten you.  If you didn’t want to so something, you’d just let me beat you up.  But somehow I managed to talk you into it. 


We went into the garage and got the hedge clippers.  You’d hold up some hair and I’d snip it.  That’s how you got your first really short haircut.  I got yelled at, not just because I gave you an irreparable haircut but because I’d used the hedge clippers.  Mom was mad more because of the hedge clippers than anything else.  She just kept saying that they were dangerous and you could have been hurt.


Another memory is from Christmas.  We’d get candy in our stockings and I’d eat all of mine right away.  And you would take 3 nibbles of a chocolate football, wrap it back up in foil and put it in your stocking.  My candy would be gone and you’d eat yours for weeks.  It wasn’t just that you like to horde things but that you liked to annoy me too.  Pretty much you knew what to do or say to annoy me enough that I’d throttle you and get in trouble.  I knew I wasn’t allowed to hit you, but it would get to the point that it was worth the punishment.


Because I wasn’t allowed to flat out hit you, I’d end up sitting on you and bouncing.  You’d cry and I’d still get in trouble.  Or you’d be sitting on the couch or lying on floor and I’d land on you and then bounce.  I’d be told so many times not hit you, so I came up with alternate ways of hurting you.


I have an image of you burned into my brain.  It still makes me laugh.  It was one of those days when I was being good big brother.  There was enough snow and we went to the big hill down at the beach.  We hiked up the hill went down a few times.  We’d made groove down the hill going toward that maintenance shed but not right toward it. 


I was going down the hill pretty well because the snow was finally getting packed down, and I turned around to see you flying downhill.   You were headed for a huge snow drift.  As I looked back, you flew off it and got this massive air, at least seven feet high, and smacked right into the maintenance shed.  You were on one of those saucer sleds, where you don’t have much control.  I was laughing so hard but was worried about you too.  I ran over saying, “Jane, are you ok?  Are you all right?”  I was trying not to laugh, but it was like something out of a Jackass movie.  You probably got a concussion, but it was just so funny. 


It still makes me laugh.