By Rick Houser-
At that time I don’t think I really realized just how different things could be. I am sure I have said before and this might sound redundant, but I was the youngest in a family of three children. There was my sister Peg (who was 12 years older than me) and then there was my brother Ben (who was eight and a half years older) and then there was me. I was the baby of the family and the youngest by a good measure of time.
Now that so much time has passed by I appreciate the spacing very much, my siblings seemed at times more like a second set of parents. They weren’t the parents who made me behave and punished me. No, on the contrary, they were the parents who made over me and in many ways spoiled me. For this they would have to make me scarce for a little bit as when I acted up and my parents had had enough. They knew that they stirred me up and into this trouble and they figured they too might end up in trouble also.
It was a win-win situation for me. With a sister and brother and an age gap, they were old enough that I just had to look up to them. I felt anything they did just had to be so very cool. (Funny thing here was they never corrected me about that.) A fact I’ve come to realize also is that my memory of things happening when I was little I recall because tmy siblings were a part of it. An example was when Elvis appeared and became the heartthrob of the world and when Bill Haley and the Comets introduced us to “Rock and Roll.” When I entered the first grade and the other kids were talking about Dick and Jane in the reading book, I was talking about the new rock and roll groups.
This was the world I entered into and was happy as a speckled pup you might say, but things had to change. When Peg graduated high school, she immediately went to college but came home pretty often, yet was gone enough for me to miss her. Then four years later Ben graduated and went off to college but was only gone for one winter and returned home, so they were still at home a lot and still watching over my life. I had my parents and my siblings all around me and I was around them. We were the typical farm family. At least I saw it that way.
Then in the summer of my 12th or 13th year that crazy thing called change really came knocking. Ben had met a girl from New Richmond and became engaged and that sounded cool but then they planned a wedding for the first Saturday in September. At that point I was still undecided if this was affecting me or not. But then Peg, who had decided it was time to move out into the big world, left home to teach in a school in Beavercreek, near Dayton. I didn’t much care for that long drive from Fruit Ridge and we wouldn’t see her very much. Then she announced that she was moving out the Sunday after Ben’s wedding. Here is when the picture got clearer to me.
The first week end of September I was losing both of my siblings. I was going to be in that big old house without them both. It did bother me but after I thought about it I decided there wasn’t a thing I was going to be able to do to stop it and I would just have to make the best of it. So after the wedding we all got up early the next morning and took Peg to an apartment in Xenia which was a long, sad drive home that night.
Come Monday I moped around the place and I’m sure I gave out heavy sighs every now and then. But before long I began to notice that their absence also had a positive side to it. Mom was having a harder time with the adjustment than me. When she prepared meals, she was still preparing for five instead of three. Being of junior high age, I had no problem taking care of the extra portions Mom had cooked. It took her a few months to adjust to her portions. I personally didn’t see the need but I lost that battle.
Mom and Dad now spent more time talking and watching me. Dad was assigning me more of the farm duties that Ben had done and I loved the challenge. Mom, who was also my seventh grade teacher, gave more insight to how my world was away from our home. (That was a very rough year.) Mom loved knowing about my friends and which girls I kind of liked and that is an area no child wants their parents in unless they are invited. She let me ride to school with her, which I liked. It seemed to me that just about anything I ask for or wanted (within reason) I got.
Then I got to thinking and it was pointed out by my best friends Charlie and Herb. I had become an only child. I had seen a couple and liked the way of their lives to a point, but at the same time I liked having a sister and a brother. But the lifestyle was different for sure. I feel that having it happen this way held me back from being a spoiled brat. (Some folks like to say that to me even today.) The thing is I know I wasn’t completely.
The more I think about having a lifestyle both ways I feel I was so very lucky to say I did have it both ways. Both ways educated me to things that I might have missed if I only had had it one way. It is safe to say I loved my family from top to bottom. I enjoyed the times we had together and those times have left me with so many great memories and me so glad they did as you see I again am an only child as they all have moved on. Of course that is part of living but those good memories insulate you from ever being alone.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you are looking to read more of his material you can reach him at [email protected]. Or you can write to him at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, Ohio 45106.
