My First Playmate

He was my brother, who was only one year older but was so much smarter than me, so he always said. Competition and admiration coexisted on my part. He taught me to play chess, various board games, cards and how to ice skate. He also took apart my dolls to see how they worked.

Because of the long cold Canadian winters, we had a finished basement, as did everyone else. Ours was divided into three segments. There was a laundry area, a cold storage room and a rec room. The most commonly used room for we three kids was the rec room where we would play board games, read comic books or play cards. Mum would manage well enough with just our four year old baby brother in tow but all three of us was too much so downstairs we older two went.

We usually played well together except for one (well remembered but never spoken of for years) blustery winter afternoon when my brother was eight and I was seven. My brother and I had played the battleship board game for a few hours but I had consistently won each game, which frustrated him no end and goaded him into another type of competition. Game on, kid. The cold storage room held the winter eatables, which included a giant pinwheel of cheese, a number of hanging cold meats and a barrel of home made wine that was aging over the winter. My brother opined that he could drink more wine than I could. I, of course, disagreed. We spent the next hour exchanging sips of wine until mum let us know that dinner was ready. 

Dad was seated and talking with our baby brother. Mom placed a plate of spaghetti in front of me. I quietly stared at it, noticing how the noodles seemed to be moving. Actually eating the stuff was another matter. I picked up the fork but tended to miss the plate, alternately I picked up the noodles but would miss my mouth. Dad finally looked at us and asked mum “what the heck’s wrong with these kids”. My brother chose that moment to jump up and loudly proclaim “I drank more wine than she did”. Undaunted, I too stood up and said “he did not”. Unfortunately, the “not” corresponded with the moment that I tossed my cookies onto my dinner plate and a few other nearby utensils. Not to be outdone, my brother unceremoniously did the same thing. Mum jumped up, bug eyed, open mouthed and utterly horrified, while dad looked absolutely furious, although he couldn’t exactly decide in which direction to focus his anger. Bedlam ensued. Mum moved to quickly remove us to the bathroom while dad demanded to know how the hell we had managed to find our way into the storage room. Our baby brother, in the meantime, sat quietly, observing the chaos with a look on his face that clearly said “I want another family”. 

We were cleaned up and put to bed. The next morning dad had a very stern sermon for us (I blamed it all on my brother) while mum was still so agitated and embarrassed, demanding that this episode never be spoken of again lest the church excommunicate the entire family. 

And it was never spoken of again, at least until we were adults. Looking back on it, my brother and I both thought it was very funny and it had the added value of putting us off alcohol long after our school friends were imbibing. And likewise, we conceded that if something like that had happened today, probably child protective services would have removed all three of us from our family home and placed our parents in jail, but that was then and this was now.