Chapter 9: It’s a Boy!

For one whole winter I entertained myself by scaring Mother (see Scaredy Cat), and watching her get fat. By spring, when my sisters finished school, I was more than ready to jump into summer – climbing trees, getting ‘lost’ in the woods, and going fishing down at the pond not far from our house.

Mother would fix us bologna sandwiches and a jug of Kool Aid to take with us for our picnic lunch when we went fishing. My oldest sister, Andrea, would load Linda and me into our little red wagon, along with our lunch and fishing poles and she would pull us through a pasture, lift the two of us, our poles, and lunch across a fence, and we’d walk several hundred feet to the bank of the pond. There was a tree that had fallen in a storm and it overhung the water, so Andrea would sit me in the tree, with my fishing pole (worm included), and Linda would sit on the bank with her pole (worm included). I loved those forays into the woods, bugs and all (and believe me in Minnesota in the summer there were plenty of them).

Throughout the summer months, we watched as Mother just got fatter and fatter. Then, in early August, for some unknown reason, Daddy loaded us all into the car and took us to Grandmother and Grandad Mares’ house in town and dropped us off. Now this was strange behavior. I don’t remember ever having been at my grandparents’ house without Mother being there with us. But it was sort of fun. Grandmother gave us baths (in a tub with running water, which we didn’t have at home). This was our first encounter with a real bathtub, at least in my short memory, and I immediately started hatching plans for how we could turn it into a slippery slide. This would result, several years later, in another run to the hospital and numerous stitches in my chin, but that is another story.

The next day (or maybe two) Daddy and Mother showed up at Grandmother’s house, and they brought with them a little bundle that they called Dale. And, bingo! I had a brother. He was so darn cute I couldn’t stop looking at him. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Just like me! Both my older sisters had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and continually assured me that I was adopted, but now I had proof that it wasn’t true!

Maple Lake, the town where we attended school and went to church each Sunday was Catholic. Our grandparents lived across the street from the Catholic church. Mother was expected to appear, every Sunday, with her children curled and dressed up for Sunday mass. After church, we would stop in and visit for half an hour or so with Grandmother and Grandad. One Sunday, when Dale was only a few weeks old, we made our traditional Sunday visit. Mother put Dale in the middle of their big bed, and since he was only a couple of weeks old, she assumed he would stay there. He did. I don’t remember this story very clearly, but Andrea, my oldest sister, said we had a nice visit with our usual laugher and silliness, and then we all walked out, got in the car and drove toward home. About half a mile out of town, Linda popped up and said: “Mother, where’s the baby?” Mother made a quick U-turn in the middle of the road and raced back to town to rescue Dale. When Andrea ran into the house to get the baby, Grandmother was sitting in her rocking chair, rocking him. After another great bout of laughter, we headed for home, family intact.

When school started in September, I now had a little bundle of baby to play with while Linda and Andrea were gone each day. Mother was very clear from the get-go that I was not to try and scare Dale (which was a great disappointment because the kid was a sitting duck!) At one point, Mother was changing Dale’s diaper and said, “Oh, he has a boatload here,” which I thought was extremely funny, so I kept my eye on him and whenever his diaper began to sag I’d holler “Dale’s got a boatload, Mother!”

When Dale was about nine months old, he still couldn’t really walk but he could stand up if he held on to something. He had learned to say “bye-bye,” so whenever the Everly Brothers would come on the radio singing “Bye Bye Love,” if we stood Dale in front of the radio, he’d hold on to the end table, butt bouncing up and down, singing “bye bye” until the song was over. Too cute. But I always had my eye on his diaper, just in case.

Dale loved bananas. Mother had to buy them almost every day. She’d peel it down to the bottom and he’d hold it up to his mouth and start munching. He just kept feeding it into his constantly moving mouth until he got to the bottom – sort of like feeding wood into a wood chipper. (Hence the ‘boatload’!)

When she took him for a checkup to the local doctor, Dr. Raetz, she asked him if a kid could eat too many bananas. He asked her how many he was eating. She said “five or six a day.” The doctor was shocked. “A DAY?” – then he thought about it. “I guess it can’t hurt him, but maybe I’d cut him down to two or three.” But it was hard, when he’d finish one, hand her the limp peel, and beg, “More ‘nana, Mama.”

He still loves bananas to this day, but he’s cut it back to one. Or maybe two.

And, just in case you’re wondering I still scare him every chance I get.