ONCE UPON A TIME....

I was remembering the other day about all the fun times my brother and I used to have when we were young.  When we were teenagers it wasn't as much fun since we had lots of fights so whenever possible I avoided him like poison ivy. For example when we were on dishwashing duty (this was pre-dishwashers) I washed and he dried. He delighted in throwing dishes back in the soap, telling me they were not clean. Or he would count the number of my pimples out loud. That was reeeally annoying!
He would also monkey bump me in the upper arm. Most of my early teen years I had black and blue biceps.  There was a commercial on TV back then for Ajax. It had little men that were surrounded with bubbles doing a number on a sink. One of the little characters had a tubby stomach, and Chip would point to my stomach and say "Foams As It Cleans" - and then laugh hysterically!  What a jewel!
But, as they say, I digress.

When we were very young we slept in a large attic room. Frankly I remember it as being sort of spooky, especially in the wind. When we were in our beds at night, we used to make up really funny stories involving my teddy bear (Big John) and his puppet (Sparky).  Most of the stories involved bad words like "poo". I suspect we went to sleep most nights laughing. The names of our characters came from a radio program back then called "NO SCHOOL TODAY with Big John and Sparky. The theme song was the Teddy Bear's Picnic. Everytime I hear that song, which isn't often as you can imagine, I can picture us in our attic, laughing.

Eventually my Dad remodeled the attic into two separate bedrooms, a hall and some closets.  Big John and Sparky were probably relegated to a closet.  Sparky later was consumed in a fire that burned our home. I still have Big John...somehow he survived - however he was badly singed, his nose is hanging by a few threads, and his button eyes are gone. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001N05YMU/ref=dm_dp_trk1?ie=UTF8&qid=1274383278&sr=301-1

R.I.P. Sparky!