Brainstorming

It hasn’t been boring, I’ll say that much. I come from a typical American family, African American that is. My father was the bread winner and my mother worked at home. You know, doing the real rearing of the children, cooking, cleaning the house, and going to school games and plays, that kind of work. My parents produced six offspring: five sons and myself. Both of my parents had been married previously, so each had children from those prior marriages. My father had two sons and three daughters before he met my mother and she had married at the ripe old age of 15 and she had two daughters from that union. Needless to say, Thanksgiving at our house could be a big affair.

The youngest of the brood are brothers Harris and Horace. They are twins. Whenever I tell anyone that I have twin brothers, it seems to confuse most people. They look at me like I said, “triplets” or like I am one of the twins. Having Harris and Horace around was a lot of fun, sometimes. I am six years older than they are and they were so gullible that this stirred up many creative ideas in my mind. I could trick them and pull all kinds of pranks on them. What fun!

I am the second child and only girl in the family. Being the only girl has some advantages. You never have to share your bedroom and you never, ever have to get anyone’s old toys or other hand-me-downs. You are quite the princess. Sometimes, though, I think my Mom was a little jealous of my Dad’s and my relationship. One time in particular, was when I graduated from high school and got accepted to Rutgers University on a full scholarship. My father bought me a Cadillac! Why my mother was jealous I do not know. She had never even had a driver’s license. She really made it uncomfortable around the house those first several months.

My brother Carl is the oldest, (you realize that I am talking only about the children my mother and father had together). We call him “Butch.” He was as great an athlete as he was smart. Butch is two and half years older than I am. Astonished is what I was when I got to high school and discovered that he was an only child! No one knew at the school knew that “Carl” had siblings.

There are 16 months between my brother Kevin and me, and 15 months between Kevin and Robert. The six of us were pretty much stair step children. We came from a large and close family. However, Kevin, Robert and I were almost as close as the twins. Harris and Horace functioned as one person. They had the same dreams at times. It was really eerie.

There were other major players in our family. Like King. He was the favorite of all of our dogs. He was the funniest, bravest little mutt you ever saw. My father used to pretend that King was saying, “I’m a Price, not a fice.” My maiden name is Price, and a fice is a mongrel dog.

King’s talents were many, for example; he could tell time. He knew what time our Dad was coming home. He also liked to amuse us. So, when we would yell; “Daddy!” at the strangest hours, say 11:00 in the morning. King would start running around like a mad dog, whimpering and begging to go outside, as if “Daddy” were coming home from work. He knew better, so did we.