Family Stories -- My Brother Sid Part 1

Last Monday night I had supper at the Thai Deli with my friend Dianita who is a counselor. She does that Shadow Work I spoke about in an earlier entry. We were talking about the inner child, and got into family stories, and I told Dianita quite a few from my family. She said I should really write down these stories. Dianita planted a seed, and then there was something else.

I saw the movie Swingers, written by Jon Favreau, and starring him and Vince Vaughn. Have you seen it? I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a light-hearted movie about a group of young men who were really good friends. They shared in their fun and their troubles. Imperfect people, yet how you love them. At least I did. I didn’t want the movie to be over.

This made me think about my brother Sid and his gang of friends when they were in their early to late twenties and I was in high school. So putting together what Dianita said and the memories that the movie sparked, I will tell you about an another era. This kind of good time does not last forever.

My brother Sid and his friends used to play cards a lot over our house. We had a big dining-room table. It was my job – and my pleasure – to be the barmaid, so to speak. I was seven years younger than my brother Sid. At the time, I was the apple of his eye which fact was not lost on me. And you can be sure I adored my brother and his friends. It was wonderful to have an older brother and his friends in my life. His friends were like a bunch of older brothers who liked you and teased you and were oh so nice to you. I was definitely in a privileged position.

I would serve non-alcoholic drinks. I would make fried egg and raw onion sandwiches for them. I learned a lot about penny poker which I have mostly forgotten. I do remember they played seven card poker, two cards up. I do remember about royal flushes and straights.

They had wonderful times, lots of laughs. I can picture Lou Baron, Sammy Lambert, Stan Sorkin and Lenny Rubin. There may have been others occasionally, but these were the four regulars.

Lou was a men’s clothes’ salesman. He was more quiet than the others. Probably shy. He married later, as did they all. I can picture Lou’s wife but not her name. Nothing pretentious about her. I liked her very much. I know he and his wife had children, and I remember they lived in Longmeadow. I never knew the rest of their story. You realize I moved away from Springfield, Mass. a long long time ago.

Stan lived out of town in a suburb of Boston. Sometimes, when my brother had a date, Stan would invite me to be his date, and so my brother and his date and Stan and I would double-date, so to speak. Stan was a really sweet guy. Owned a medical supply business. I liked Stan, and I guess he liked me, but there was no spark, and I suppose in those days a plain friendship didn’t count for much. I suppose what Stan and I had mainly in common was my brother. But how overjoyed I would be now to see Stan and know how he is.

On one of those double dates, my brother had his first date with Barbara who later became his wife. Barbara and I knew each other slightly from high school. She was a year ahead of me. In fact, I pledged for the sorority she happened to be in, and she was what was called my special superior sister. Of course, I have no idea why I even bothered with a sorority. I guess I just went along with whatever was in those days. Barbara had been singularly mean to me and to the other pledgees. At the beginning of their romance, my brother would tease Barbara by saying, “How come you were so mean to my baby sister?