HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHIP!!

It is my brother Chip's birthday. He is younger than I am but he calls ME his "baby" sister Susie. I like that.

I don't have any recollections of Chip as a baby - I was almost three when he was born. It must not have been a traumatic event for me - having my place in the family usurped - since the blessed event and his subsequent toddlerhood is not in my memory bank. I don't wake up in cold sweats thinking about it!

My first memories of him were of bedtime when we moved to Forks Township. Mom and Dad bought this old house - 200 years old I think - a 3 level built into a hill, with kitchen and den downstairs, then up a level to the living room, their bedroom and the one bathroom. Upstairs, the unfinished attic which became, after years of remodeling, Chip's and my bedrooms. However for a few years we were in the attic as it was. Spooky.Dark. You could hear the wind whistling through the eaves. Our new puppy Ginger disappeared forever one day and Chip and I were convinced that Ginger was somehow under the floorboards! The most fun memory of our sleeping quarters was our every-nightime story creation of BIG JOHN & SPARKY. Most of you won't remember a radio program which was on every Saturday with that title. We made up hilarious (to us) stories about Big John and Sparky, starring my panda bear as Big John and Chip's hand puppet with a wooden head as Sparky. The story that made us laugh 'til we cried was the one where Big John and Sparky were pulling a wagon of poo up a hill and it got away from them, careening back down the hill. Nothing funnier than a poo story.

I have lots of funny stories about my brother.

The one when he was asked by my Mom to go get a nice lilac branch after saying the F Word. He obliged and was whacked with it.

Or the one where he was water skiing and hit a canoe mid-section.

Or the one where the day he got his drivers license, he pulled into a gas station and while backing toward the pump, knocked it right off its foundation.

Or the one where he mooned a crowd on the Hahn's rope swing.

Or the one where he told one of my less than welcome suitors that we were tired of him hanging around and scarfing up our food and that our Mom wished he wouldn't stay so late.

Or the one where he was racing my ex-husband the night before our wedding and they crashed together and wiped out our new Austin Healy and harmed his Triumph.

I got a million of them!

He is an amazing guy - and I am lucky he is my brother. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHIP!!