By Lorry Myers
My brother is sixteen months younger than me, a proven daredevil by nature. Greg was a tough kid and so was I but if anything went wrong, the oldest got the blame.
After all, I should have known better.
We were free-spirited children, roaming the neighborhood, discovering short cuts, biting dogs, and climb-worthy trees. When neighborhood sides were chosen, my brother and I always tried to be on the same team.
Together, we were hard to beat.
When Greg was six, he broke his arm jumping off the picnic table. It was
his idea to run and fling ourselves into the air to see who could jump the farthest.
I should have known better.
My family was fortunate to live close to the City Park where my brother and I were allowed to wander on our own. Nothing scared us, nothing slowed us down.
Not even my brother’s broken arm.
That day, I beat Greg to the park and climbed quickly to the top of what we called “the big-o slide”. Before Greg could catch me, I sat down on the slide platform and pushed off. Greg was right behind me and when he reached the top of the stairs, he stood on the platform, raised his good arm and his broken arm into the air, yelling for all the world to hear.
“I am the King of the Universe!”
By then, I was on the stairs, hot on his trail. It became a rhythmic frenzy of chasing, climbing, and sliding when suddenly, I watched as my little brother, above me on the slide platform, slipped. In his fall, Greg managed to hook his cast through the arm rail and there he was, hanging from the top of the giant slide, swinging by his broken arm.
I scurried up the ladder and tried to help, but nothing worked. I couldn’t pull him up, threaten him up, or shame him up. Greg was stuck, hanging by the crook of his plaster cast, his feet touching nothing but air.
“I’m going for help,” I told him. “Stay right there.”
For the complete column, see this week’s edition of the Centralia Fireside Guard
