2017 - The following was written in 2000. Clearly, at the time, I hadn't written the part about John yet. Sorry John. If I were to write this again I would most likely have a different take on things but this is what I felt at age 34.
The Poulin Brothers
As far as I know, I have only four brothers. That makes five boys. Family secrets being what they are, you can never be sure if there is some bastard child somewhere in Ohio who is running around looking and acting just like me. For discussion’s sake let us assume that there are only the five of us. This means that five times my mother pushed out a bouncing baby boy only to be disappointed that a girl was not to be had. Five boys must have driven her crazy…or would have if she hadn’t already been so. Likely having five boys did not help her state but she at least succeeded in bringing up five, generally well-behaved young men (well, old men too if we include Jerry and Ken).
For the most part, Jerry and Ken were not a large part of my youth in terms of shaping who I was going to be. They were mostly out of the house by the time I was a conscious human being absorbing good and bad habits. Mike and John were my buddies. I guess I should caveat that. We were not buddies very often but tolerated each other as required by siblings. I bothered Mike, John bothered me, Mike bothered John, etc. In terms of annoying ratios, I’d say Mike got bothered more by me and John than the other way around. Anyhow, we all shaped each other for better or worse and bonded together as necessary to battle the demons handed to us in the guise of our truly screwed up mother.
The opinions I share here are, of course, mine and only mine and, as such, are not likely to satisfy everyone. Heck, I might just piss some folks off. This is just how I see and saw it. Perhaps Mike has a secret life I never knew about or maybe Ken liked to kick puppies for fun or something like that. Who knows? I can only describe my feelings; my experiences with each of my brothers are unique from their interactions with each other. They would, no doubt, present different views on our family.
Ken
Ken was and always will be the eldest. He was the big experiment. All things that came after were first tried on Ken and filtered their way down to us as successful ways to raise a child. Having said that, he was the first to get spanked and belted, yelled at, fed bad food, made to wear horrendous clothing, etc. One thing he at least got was new clothes. I’m not sure I had a new pair of shoes until a few years ago. I’m kidding, of course, but surely Ken did not have to suffer with wearing a 10 year old “white” dress shirt or shiny black shoes from the sixties (of course he had shiny black shoes from the sixties but THEY WERE IN STYLE then). Ken, along with Jerry, lived in better times, I think. Our family was still a family, at least in the sense that the father and mother and all of the kids lived under the same roof. The family apparently had some money as they were able to own a house. Ken had the added bonus of growing up with my father around. I say bonus but I guess I really don’t know or will ever know what it is like to grow up with Dad. Perhaps he was a good father, perhaps he was a bastard. I don’t know. But I believe that there are shades of my Dad which have been passed on to Ken. He, like I believe my Dad was, is a hard worker who doesn’t suffer fools.
Ken was always the “mean” brother. We were all scared of him and still hold a certain wariness/reverence of him to this day. He was always serious, it seems, even though in later years I knew him to be not so serious at times. Whether he knows it or not, he and Cheryl nurtured my extremely perverted sense of humor. Anyway, in my early formative years I can’t remember him being around more than a handful of times. It seems he was off working or motorcycling or whatever and I can’t really remember him living for long in the house at Mountainview St. Before Cheryl, I cannot picture any girlfriends. He lived nearby in the apartments on the corner of Crystal Ave and Belmont Ave (curiously where my mother lives today). He has ALWAYS worked at the Post Office. I can remember him offering me a ride to kindergarten and thinking that was cool when he dropped me off. I recall him coaching me on my ABCs in the dining room. He taught me how to make paper balloons and how to play Rummy in the living room. I can remember, as I have already spoken about, getting my ass wacked severely (acting the father) by him for climbing where I shouldn’t have. I think I can still feel that beating, mentally if not physically. He was not around for the games in the driveway nor do I remember him being all that close to the Nisenkiers. He had his own life which did not include we kids.
Now, before you think that I am bitter and he was a jerk, I should a) remind you that these are my perceptions of the earliest times and b) never felt abandoned by him, even when I was very young. You see, since I was so young, I never really had much “bonding” time with him anyway and him not being around was just how it was. No foul, certainly. Like the uncle you never see but are always happy when he shows up. When we needed him he would be there if we called.
In retrospect, Ken was there more than any typical teenager should be expected to be. Since my Dad was not around, he was the “man of the house”. He had responsibilities that your normal teenager does not have, should not have. He worked and supported himself. He bought cars for Mom and maintained them as best as possible. He gave us kids some money when he could. He was giving us an allowance. What was that about? He was helping us in the best way he knew how to. He was the go between for my mother and father, a task that was not always a simple matter of delivering a message or a check. He was the bumper-pool ball between two beings who, at one time for him, stood for family tranquility. Perhaps he was not around that much but he certainly was taking care of the dirty work.
In my later youth he helped us even more by giving us access to his apartment and his food. His place was a center of normalcy during a time period in my life where there was little. Mike was given a key to the apartment and I hope that it helped him in some way. Things at home were just too nutty for a teenager like him to have to be dealing with. John and I were probably a bit more flexible in dealing with the craziness but Mike had at least had some semblance of normalcy early on and, no doubt, had difficulty with the painful transition. No doubt Ken’s efforts were much appreciated most of all by him (I hope they are).
For the most part he was very accepting of the intrusions that we made upon his life. I remember stopping daily at his apartment and sometimes eating all of his yogurt or cereal. He got pissed, gave us a lecture, and continued to supply the calories that our skinny little frames were so obviously craving.
I can picture his place as being full of books and geeky toys. At one point he had a ball clock which made so much noise that he ended up hating the thing, I think. I remember him being quite anal about the coffee table and using a coaster (I understand this now that I am an adult). He had a bean bag chair (probably Jerry’s since Jerry lived with him for a while) and a stereo (also probably Jerry’s) and he liked to collect coins. We caught on to this hobby as best as poor kids can and avidly collected pennies for our penny books, gladly supplied by Ken at Xmas time. I still have a 1976 proof set he gave to me and to John (John spent his). Ken always got us the cool toys as Mom provided the lame stuff like clothes, pencils for school, coloring books, etc. I guess it is little unclear to me today what he gave us for Xmas and what was coming from my Dad or Grandmother as I think he had to pretend more of it was from him than from Dad in order for us to actually get (and keep) any of it.
When we got evicted from our house on Mountainview St. Ken provided for us by supplying an apartment in the attic of his 86 Rittenhouse Terrace home. Did he have to do this? Of course not. Were we charged for rent? Yes, but only the barest of amounts and I’m sure that Ken would have charged nothing had he been able to. He was again playing the responsible one. It is difficult to imagine how my life would have been had he not been there to pick up the pieces. I’m guessing that John and I would have been shipped away to an orphanage or foster home and Mom…who knows? Perhaps Mom would have been better off being hauled away and sometimes I wonder if we all would have been better off without the burden that is our mother. There is no way to know but I’m betting that John would not have turned out the fine man that he is today. I would probably have survived because I feel that I have been the most resilient of all of us for some reason. I cannot really pinpoint why I am that way. Anyway, Ken was there and John and I continued mooching off of him and his bride-to-be Cheryl Hollis. Thankfully, she was understanding. Mike was off in the Navy doing his thing while John and I remained. Mike eventually came back and lived for a while at Rittenhouse in Ken’s 2nd floor apartment after Ken and Cheryl had moved out to Indian Orchard.
We kind of picked up two little brothers in Patrick and Michael, Cheryl’s children. We babysat the two kids and got to see Ken in a truly fatherly position. He had had much practice. I saw him as a tough daddy doing the same things he had done with us, not being particularly forthcoming with feelings (other than rage) and being quite stern, to the surprise of Cheryl, I think. I think that I picked some things up from him on being a parent that I have used on my daughter Isabelle. I certainly am the stricter parent and stick to my PARENTAL PROCLAMATIONS a bit more than Michelle. However, I have couched my anger as best as possible and used spanking a bit more sparingly (although I’m sure Michelle would not think sparingly enough). I have also added into the mix a sensitive, loving, learning atmosphere that I obtained from watching Jerry with his children. We shall see how it all turns out. [2017 - Some time after we moved back to Massachusetts, ~2004, I saw my young son begin to hit me back when he thought he was in trouble. I realized that he thought hitting was an appropriate thing because that is what I did to him via spanking. I stopped this stupid and lazy way of doing things. I only wish I never started. This is one of my greatest regrets in life].
Ken has now raised three children. Christopher is his and Cheryl’s only biological child together and I’m not sure how things went there because they had moved to Palmer by the time Christopher was born. However, I do know that he has raised three fine children and has managed to turn around Patrick who was definitely on the road to no good if his early childhood was any indication. In the same way, Ken took one of his unofficial children, John, and guided (forced?) him down the right path. John, if you ever read this, you owe him big time because you were a little prick of a teenager and you’d probably be dead by now.
I remember once Ken (or maybe Cheryl) quizzed me why I felt it necessary to continue giving presents to him and his family at Xmas time. I told him that it was only right to do so as he had helped me considerably in the past. I’m not sure if it sank in how much he means to me and that was the only way I knew how to say thank you.
I think he eventually began to see all that he had done for us and for Mom and felt cheated of a normal life. Certainly that is the feeling I get when I have talked to Cheryl even if the sentiment has not directly come from his mouth. He has wandered off in pursuit of his own life with his own family and his own normalcy and, for that, I do not begrudge him one bit. I feel that I am the only one who understands him in this way and I hope that, someday, my other brothers will catch on. In the end, I describe him as a caring soul who was handed a lot of crap to deal with and for that I am grateful and owe him dearly for his pains. Perhaps someday he will come back into the fold but for now we should let him be.
Jerry
I believe Jerry to have grown up under similar circumstances as Ken but it is interesting to note how different they are from each other. I don’t understand why that would happen and can only chalk the difference up to genetics. Jerry was always a wanderer and a liver of life. He was around for a while at Mountainview St. living in the attic and living his mysterious life. I did get occasional glimpses of that life, however. I remember he once brought home a girlfriend and I was mischievously interrupting the goings on. Here Jerry was just trying to make out and here I was hidden behind the chair making goofy sounds to interrupt the loving going on. What an annoying little pain in the ass I was (was??). Another aspect of his life included the Nisenkiers, of which I’ve already talked at length about. For the most part, though, I knew not where he went or did. I cannot recall him having a job as a teenager although that’s not to say that he didn’t. I do not know. He was into the politics of the day and as evidence to this fact I can easily recall the words “Nixon is a fink” written in crayon on the wall of his closet in the attic. He participated in boycotts, a truly radical thing to do at the time. He boycotted leafy lettuce for some reason at one point. Who knows? I have never been into causes like he so I can’t pretend to understand his early 1970s nuttiness. He once told me that he went off to live a commune which was a 70s thing to do. I think he was just trying to avoid the Vietnam War draft. I expect that he was just a rebel like all of his generation around him, holding up the self righteous torch as was required of him. He has changed considerably over the years, certainly much more than any of the rest of us, but his rebel streak still exists in the form of stubbornness (I might add that we are all quite stubborn).
As for his kinder, gentler side, I can remember one birthday when he made a fire engine out of candy. He once took me out for my birthday. I can remember walking with him along Dickinson St and I think we went to Friendly’s on Belmont Ave. We also picked up a pumpkin as my birthday is in October. He certainly tried to be a good brother. He was into music, art, and reading. He had quite the collection of science fiction and fantasy books at one time and I’m sure that Michelle, also the avid sci-fi & fantasy fan, and he would have got along quite nicely way back when. He seemed to be the ladies man because I can remember him walking along with his wife-to-be and her sister down the street and us giving him hell for having two girlfriends. I also seem to recall that he did some artwork but I can’t remember anything specific. Mike picked up that mantel. He was big into music and often had his guitar ready at hand. He introduced me to the dulcimer (an instrument probably only made popular due to the Indian/drug culture connection). I remember that he had a large bottle filled with marbles and water with a tube running to a pipe. At the time of my exposure to this object, I did not realize its true significance. He at least admitted that it was for cooling the smoke before it was inhaled into your lungs and, being a dumb kid, I naturally assumed he meant tobacco smoke. Now, I can’t say for sure what he used it for but I’d bet money that it was for smoking marijuana. I’m not sure that if I asked him today he would even give me a straight answer. In any case, it was cool because you would blow bubbles with it and watch the bubbles rise through the marbles to the top.
After he had married Susan Morganegg and had moved to his own place, I used to stop by their apartment to listen to the stereo and just be a general nuisance to him and Sue. I listened to his Beatles 8-track tapes over and over. In fact, it wasn’t until I met Michelle that I knew any other type of music. To this day, Beatles music is pretty much the only music for which I know the words. I had great times over Jerry and Sue’s place because they let me stay for long periods, even when I showed up unannounced. We talked politics, writing, everything. Jerry and I debated constantly and I was always the devil’s advocate, even to the point of being a devil’s ass. Sue oftentimes stood by and rolled her eyes as Jerry and I immersed ourselves into debates too convoluted or idiotic for her to consider. Jerry showed me how to think logically and linearly. Cause and effect. I started to develop into my own person and, interestingly today, I am quite different from him because of him. I wrote stories a lot at that time and Jerry and Sue were always my willing audience. We talked about good writing and we made puzzles, watched TV, had supper, and ate popcorn.
They brought me and John to interesting places like waterfalls, Gillette Castle, Mt. Greylock, the beach, etc. He took us hiking and I can specifically remember he and I hiking to the top of Mt. Monodnack in New Hampshire and jogging some part of the way down, deliriously ignoring the potential for twisted ankles. And, once we were down and VERY hungry, he took that opportunity to proclaim McDonalds as the best food in the world at that moment (he never ate the stuff, supposedly). Another time I was allowed to do some night driving on our way home from overnight camping in the Adirondacks and I almost ran into some deer. Since I had gotten my license only recently (maybe I was even still using a permit), I was a jangle of nerves the whole way home but I insisted on driving the rest of the way. We went a bit slower than we might have otherwise. To this day the deer crossing sign lifts my foot from the pedal, if only for a moment. My huge photo album collection begins during these times and it is a testament to my emerging happiness. All of the fun things we did I ended up introducing Michelle to later on. I at least had some interesting qualities about me because of their influence and kindness to me. They truly added a lot to my otherwise boring life.
Eventually the kids started coming, first Kenny, then Audrey and then little Amanda. I was around a bunch to babysit Kenny but not so much for the other two. This was my first introduction to taking care of a baby. I can say that I do a lot better job now but back then, oh, the screaming drove me insane (it still does but I can handle it better…most of the time). Michelle and the nurses in the hospital seemed to be surprised that I jumped right in to change Isabelle’s diaper after she was born. To me it was merely a skill I had acquired some 15 years previous which was easily put back into use. I guess I was a little surprised that Michelle was surprised because Michelle had helped me babysit Kenny before. Anyway, after a time I did not see them as much as I became involved in my own emerging life. Michelle, work, college. I was not really around to see Audrey and Amanda’s early years.
Their apartments were always packed full of stuff. I guess that’s what made life over their house interesting. But come moving time, something they seemed to do more than the average person, it was hellish because they had so much STUFF. Lots of books, of course. They always seemed to have lots of stuff and they were continually acquiring more stuff. Sue’s a big packrat and I’m sure Jerry is no better. I used to be quite the packrat myself early on but I’ve learned the art of purging (although my wife might not think so). They still have lots of stuff. But I suppose because they have been home-schooling their children, having lots of stuff is beneficial for the learning process just as it was for me.
In our talks, Jerry and I of course touched upon the subject of religion. We talked of its origins and its necessity. What makes Catholicism attractive or otherwise. He once told me he turned from Catholicism because he couldn’t stand how it had changed. He was irritated that the mass was no longer in Latin or that the priest faced the congregation rather than the alter. Damn purist. Actually, he liked what he had grown up with (as anyone) and it didn’t seem to phase him that the mass had changed about a jillion different times over the centuries. Sometimes he just seems so illogical and I have had a difficult time understanding that because he is the one who nurtured my logic skills. Basically I think his logic skills are overshadowed by his stubbornness. I find it highly amusing that he and his family are now practicing the Catholic faith after having been Protestant for years. Go figure. I guess you just need to find something you like because there isn’t all that much difference among the different Christian religions.
Jerry took on some of the things that Ken did in terms of providing for us kids. He did it in a different way, though. A more personal way. His contributions were not so much monetary (as he’s never had that much) as intellectual and nurturing. His house was a “safe house” of sorts which helped to insulate John and me from our mother. We could always count on Jerry and Sue to provide us with some stability and open our eyes to more worldly issues, issues more relevant than those posed in the sheltered world my mother lived in.
Today, Jerry and his family live in a small house in Indian Orchard, quite close to the old Dubois St. house. I am sure that this was intentional as Jerry seems to be more comfortable these days thinking about the past than the present or future. He seems to harken back to a time when “life was simple”. I do not know if life was any simpler “way back when” but we all believe what we believe. I personally feel life is what you make it. If you make it complex it will be complex and if you strive to keep things simple then it will remain so. Today’s world seems to disgust Jerry. He home-schools his children claiming that the public schools are messed up and can’t teach. Maybe true, maybe not. However, what he doesn’t seem to realize is the fact that we all teach ourselves and that school is merely part of the game. Jerry doesn’t like to play the game. His children are bright, probably not because they were home-schooled, but because they were influenced by the two best teachers any child could ask for. Their parents. Give them the tools you think they need early on and support their efforts throughout life and it won’t matter if the schools are a mess. That is how I made it through. With their help. I have no doubt (for I have heard both Jerry & Sue express this sentiment) that the real reason for home-schooling the kids is to shelter them from the craziness presumably arising in our schools today. Yes, some schools do have a nasty element but if more parents cared as much for their children as Jerry and Sue obviously do, then the nastiness could be kept at bay. I expect that their children will go off into the real world and be somewhat shocked by what they find but will soon adapt…like I did.
Mike
Mike, Mike, Mike. He had the unfortunate luck of being born at the wrong time. Of course he had no control over this matter and, truth be told, who was to know that our family would be so fucked up during Mike’s formative years. Mike had a Dad. Then he didn’t. Mike had a Mom. Mike had a crazy Mom with no one to reign her in. Mike had two older brothers who were essentially out of the house and two younger brothers who teased him very badly, feeding upon his already stressed state. Mike had to change high schools at a time when the family funds were taking a dive. Mike had acne. Mike had to fix things around the house because he was the only one around most of the time. Mike was born to Mom. Mike was born at the wrong time.
Sometimes we all joke about having different fathers (never meaning to insinuate that our Mom was a floozy) and we have a great laugh about it. John’s daddy was the milkman and mine was the mailman and Mike’s daddy was the garbageman. We joke about this and I’m not sure why it came about. We all tend to look alike. Certainly John and Ken look alike (we joke that the milkman came back 14 years later), and me, Jerry and Mike resemble each other. Perhaps because no single one of us acts just like Dad but it is evident that Mom is our mother. Whether any of us cares to admit it or not, we all have a little element of crazy in us and that probably scares us all. It does me.
When we were kids, John and I were particularly annoying to him. Surprisingly, he never left us to suffer Mom alone (until we were older and then we were OK to handle things ourselves) even though we were such bastards. He of all my older brothers felt the most responsible for us and he wore it visibly. His temper was frightening and Mom only served to fuel the flames. How do you deal with a crazy mother and live a normal teenage life? You withdraw into yourself. You don’t invite your friends over (I know that from my own experience). You make excuses not to bring your normal life in touch with your screwball life for fear that they would collide like matter and antimatter. You lock yourself in your bedroom. A lock on the bedroom door of a youngster means something. First it means the child is running away and second it means that the parent is not in control. So Mike was on his own even though living under the same roof.
Now don’t think that Mike was some big troublemaker because he wasn’t. He has told me some mild stories of his youth and I’m convinced his worst offense was trying to get laid or puffing on a cigarette (what boy doesn’t try those things?). For the most part he interested himself with airplane models, rocketry, and drawing. He is very creative, a talent either learned or inherited from Mom. John and I followed in his footsteps when he would let us but I think he liked the fact that his hobbies were HIS hobbies. He was very meticulous and I can get a very clear picture of him hunching over a model in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, striving to apply the paint just so. He worked a lot on his models and back then, the airplane glue was the good stuff, the kind that would get you high. I wonder how many brain cells he lost doing that without enough ventilation? I can very clearly see the rocket model he designed and built on his own. He was quite proud of that but he was really pissed off when his rocket contest entry didn’t even get a nod from the judges and, I’m sure, chalked it up to their stupidity. He reminded me of the evil genius who just isn’t understood.
He wasn’t exactly a hermit if that’s the impression I’m painting. He hung out with friends and did the things that boys do although I cannot say for sure what that might be as John and I were ostracized from his life outside of the house (as little annoying brothers should be). I’m sure for good reason as he could just be a normal kid hanging with normal friends doing normal things without us hanging around reminding him of home. I can remember one story he told us of him and his friends at school just jumping out of the window when the teacher wasn’t looking and having the teacher be utterly perplexed when they walked back into the classroom as if they had just come back from the bathroom (torturing teachers is OK).
Interestingly, John and I were both a nuisance and a responsibility. How do you balance your young life with the need to be a father figure, with the need to be a deflector against Mom? This is how I see his life. He was pulled in two different directions. I might even say that there was a third direction since he had to deal with the animosity between our mother and father. I think he developed some distance from our father and I doubt that it was just because Dad wasn’t around. Likely he came to lay blame (consciously or not) on our father for leaving him with such responsibility and for “abandoning” us. I imagine that our mother added some fuel to the fire by telling unsavory stories about Dad. Who knows but, knowing my Mom, I would not dismiss that possibility. As much as my Mom preached her Catholic morals, her schizophrenia led her down the path to un-Christian-like actions. But enough about that crazy woman.
Mike was there to protect us like a good big brother and yet we were idiot little brothers. I used to wiggle my ass in his direction and for some reason this sent him ballistic. He would chase after me and tell me to stop it or he’d kill me (brothers say that all the time). Once I got very mad at him for not sharing (giving?) something and I whipped a pair of scissors at him and hit him in the back (I too had quite the temper sometimes). Luckily they hit him at an angle and didn’t cause any major damage but you can bet that he was not happy with me. I can’t even remember how he retaliated. Today he laughs that little incident off but someday, 10 years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised at some well-placed vengeance foisted in my direction. I’m watching you, Mike. John and I had this Gregorian chant that also grated on his nerves. We also used it on each other. It went something like this: “Aunt, aunt, aunt”, ad nauseam. This little chant would somehow wrap itself around the inner cortex of the brain and send the receiver into an uncontrollable rage. Oh, we knew what we were doing. For all those times I heartily apologize to Mike. Not to John, though, because he always deserved it.
Mike played in the games that I have previously described and was really a good big brother, in retrospect. To me and John at the time, he was mean to us, even going so far as trying to dole out spankings and such (but never really with much authority for he was just a kid, after all; even we realized that). However, time has made me think differently. He was there when we needed a cage for the rabbit or needed to dig the hole a little further towards China. He was there to bury the pennies in the mud for us and he was there to protect the hot-headed John from the enemies John seemed to be constantly making. He was there to read to us out loud and watch over us through the night when there was no oil for the furnace on a bitterly cold evening. He was there to light the fire in the fireplace. He encouraged our use of “el, el, el” to describe our juvenile lust towards women. He changed the fuses (when we actually had electricity) and helped build the snowmen as big as humanly possible. He shared his pints of ice cream (albeit begrudgingly) that he liked to buy. He shared his bed with me (also begrudgingly) when I was scared and explained to me that the clowns on my pajamas wouldn’t hurt me. He cleaned up the shit that would back up into the 1st floor sink every time we flushed the toilet. He’d siphon off the resulting sewage from the sink (the old fashioned way, starting the siphon by mouth, yecch) and dump it out of the pantry window. The green grass below the window was a testament to that.
This was Mike’s life when we were young. He was born at the wrong time.
Mike went on to the Navy where the regimen probably suited him just right. Nonetheless, he had some problems and ended up coming home early. Ken and Jerry were there to pick up the pieces and John and I were left in the dark about what really happened. We were told he was tired and resting in a Navy hospital. He wrote us a couple of letters from there and I probably only wrote him back once. I didn’t know how to deal with the situation and the truth was never forthcoming from my older bothers. Although they were probably trying to protect me I think it is amusing that they didn’t think that I, having lived with my mother for so long, couldn’t deal with the truth. Needless to say, I do not hold a high regard for family secrets and will try to be as truthful as possible with my own family. Later on Mike told me that he had had a breakdown after having taken some drugs. That’s a big family secret? I think my older brothers are just from a different generation than me.
Mike later married a woman named Cindy Breton. All seemed OK for a while. Michelle and I went out with them and generally had a good time. However, Cindy seemed a bit too controlling of Mike and I know that neither Michelle nor I were too happy with this aspect of her. Jerry recently expressed to me that he thought Cindy was OK. I’m not sure we’re talking about the same Cindy. Anyway, Mike needed to be the goofy guy he had developed into. The free spirit. Here was someone crushing that spirit and it didn’t seem right. Relatives being what they are, we did not express our concerns to Mike, thinking that a) it was none of our business and b) Mike was OK with it. They bought a nice house and happily (so it seemed) gardened and decorated together. As it turned out, they ended up divorced and Mike had to suffer one more tragedy. I hope that Mike looks at it as a fortunate opportunity given to him to find the right woman. She was merely a bumpy practice run.
His right woman came along, interestingly enough, through a meeting arranged by Pat, our Dad’s live-in girlfriend of 25 years. His new bride’s name was Paula Pinto and she definitely has the spirit of living that Cindy lacked. I expect that they will be very happy together and that the sickening (to those cynics around them) puppy love that exudes from them both will continue for a long time to come.
Mike was a brother in the truest sense. I only wish I had appreciated that fact when I was younger. If there is a Heaven, he’s got a place reserved for him, I’m sure. And I don’t talk about Heaven lightly.
John
For the most part, Jerry and Ken were not a large part of my youth in terms of shaping who I was going to be. They were mostly out of the house by the time I was a conscious human being absorbing good and bad habits. Mike and John were my buddies. I guess I should caveat that. We were not buddies very often but tolerated each other as required by siblings. I bothered Mike, John bothered me, Mike bothered John, etc. In terms of annoying ratios, I’d say Mike got bothered more by me and John than the other way around. Anyhow, we all shaped each other for better or worse and bonded together as necessary to battle the demons handed to us in the guise of our truly screwed up mother.
The opinions I share here are, of course, mine and only mine and, as such, are not likely to satisfy everyone. Heck, I might just piss some folks off. This is just how I see and saw it. Perhaps Mike has a secret life I never knew about or maybe Ken liked to kick puppies for fun or something like that. Who knows? I can only describe my feelings; my experiences with each of my brothers are unique from their interactions with each other. They would, no doubt, present different views on our family.
Ken
Ken was and always will be the eldest. He was the big experiment. All things that came after were first tried on Ken and filtered their way down to us as successful ways to raise a child. Having said that, he was the first to get spanked and belted, yelled at, fed bad food, made to wear horrendous clothing, etc. One thing he at least got was new clothes. I’m not sure I had a new pair of shoes until a few years ago. I’m kidding, of course, but surely Ken did not have to suffer with wearing a 10 year old “white” dress shirt or shiny black shoes from the sixties (of course he had shiny black shoes from the sixties but THEY WERE IN STYLE then). Ken, along with Jerry, lived in better times, I think. Our family was still a family, at least in the sense that the father and mother and all of the kids lived under the same roof. The family apparently had some money as they were able to own a house. Ken had the added bonus of growing up with my father around. I say bonus but I guess I really don’t know or will ever know what it is like to grow up with Dad. Perhaps he was a good father, perhaps he was a bastard. I don’t know. But I believe that there are shades of my Dad which have been passed on to Ken. He, like I believe my Dad was, is a hard worker who doesn’t suffer fools.
Ken was always the “mean” brother. We were all scared of him and still hold a certain wariness/reverence of him to this day. He was always serious, it seems, even though in later years I knew him to be not so serious at times. Whether he knows it or not, he and Cheryl nurtured my extremely perverted sense of humor. Anyway, in my early formative years I can’t remember him being around more than a handful of times. It seems he was off working or motorcycling or whatever and I can’t really remember him living for long in the house at Mountainview St. Before Cheryl, I cannot picture any girlfriends. He lived nearby in the apartments on the corner of Crystal Ave and Belmont Ave (curiously where my mother lives today). He has ALWAYS worked at the Post Office. I can remember him offering me a ride to kindergarten and thinking that was cool when he dropped me off. I recall him coaching me on my ABCs in the dining room. He taught me how to make paper balloons and how to play Rummy in the living room. I can remember, as I have already spoken about, getting my ass wacked severely (acting the father) by him for climbing where I shouldn’t have. I think I can still feel that beating, mentally if not physically. He was not around for the games in the driveway nor do I remember him being all that close to the Nisenkiers. He had his own life which did not include we kids.
Now, before you think that I am bitter and he was a jerk, I should a) remind you that these are my perceptions of the earliest times and b) never felt abandoned by him, even when I was very young. You see, since I was so young, I never really had much “bonding” time with him anyway and him not being around was just how it was. No foul, certainly. Like the uncle you never see but are always happy when he shows up. When we needed him he would be there if we called.
In retrospect, Ken was there more than any typical teenager should be expected to be. Since my Dad was not around, he was the “man of the house”. He had responsibilities that your normal teenager does not have, should not have. He worked and supported himself. He bought cars for Mom and maintained them as best as possible. He gave us kids some money when he could. He was giving us an allowance. What was that about? He was helping us in the best way he knew how to. He was the go between for my mother and father, a task that was not always a simple matter of delivering a message or a check. He was the bumper-pool ball between two beings who, at one time for him, stood for family tranquility. Perhaps he was not around that much but he certainly was taking care of the dirty work.
In my later youth he helped us even more by giving us access to his apartment and his food. His place was a center of normalcy during a time period in my life where there was little. Mike was given a key to the apartment and I hope that it helped him in some way. Things at home were just too nutty for a teenager like him to have to be dealing with. John and I were probably a bit more flexible in dealing with the craziness but Mike had at least had some semblance of normalcy early on and, no doubt, had difficulty with the painful transition. No doubt Ken’s efforts were much appreciated most of all by him (I hope they are).
For the most part he was very accepting of the intrusions that we made upon his life. I remember stopping daily at his apartment and sometimes eating all of his yogurt or cereal. He got pissed, gave us a lecture, and continued to supply the calories that our skinny little frames were so obviously craving.
I can picture his place as being full of books and geeky toys. At one point he had a ball clock which made so much noise that he ended up hating the thing, I think. I remember him being quite anal about the coffee table and using a coaster (I understand this now that I am an adult). He had a bean bag chair (probably Jerry’s since Jerry lived with him for a while) and a stereo (also probably Jerry’s) and he liked to collect coins. We caught on to this hobby as best as poor kids can and avidly collected pennies for our penny books, gladly supplied by Ken at Xmas time. I still have a 1976 proof set he gave to me and to John (John spent his). Ken always got us the cool toys as Mom provided the lame stuff like clothes, pencils for school, coloring books, etc. I guess it is little unclear to me today what he gave us for Xmas and what was coming from my Dad or Grandmother as I think he had to pretend more of it was from him than from Dad in order for us to actually get (and keep) any of it.
When we got evicted from our house on Mountainview St. Ken provided for us by supplying an apartment in the attic of his 86 Rittenhouse Terrace home. Did he have to do this? Of course not. Were we charged for rent? Yes, but only the barest of amounts and I’m sure that Ken would have charged nothing had he been able to. He was again playing the responsible one. It is difficult to imagine how my life would have been had he not been there to pick up the pieces. I’m guessing that John and I would have been shipped away to an orphanage or foster home and Mom…who knows? Perhaps Mom would have been better off being hauled away and sometimes I wonder if we all would have been better off without the burden that is our mother. There is no way to know but I’m betting that John would not have turned out the fine man that he is today. I would probably have survived because I feel that I have been the most resilient of all of us for some reason. I cannot really pinpoint why I am that way. Anyway, Ken was there and John and I continued mooching off of him and his bride-to-be Cheryl Hollis. Thankfully, she was understanding. Mike was off in the Navy doing his thing while John and I remained. Mike eventually came back and lived for a while at Rittenhouse in Ken’s 2nd floor apartment after Ken and Cheryl had moved out to Indian Orchard.
We kind of picked up two little brothers in Patrick and Michael, Cheryl’s children. We babysat the two kids and got to see Ken in a truly fatherly position. He had had much practice. I saw him as a tough daddy doing the same things he had done with us, not being particularly forthcoming with feelings (other than rage) and being quite stern, to the surprise of Cheryl, I think. I think that I picked some things up from him on being a parent that I have used on my daughter Isabelle. I certainly am the stricter parent and stick to my PARENTAL PROCLAMATIONS a bit more than Michelle. However, I have couched my anger as best as possible and used spanking a bit more sparingly (although I’m sure Michelle would not think sparingly enough). I have also added into the mix a sensitive, loving, learning atmosphere that I obtained from watching Jerry with his children. We shall see how it all turns out. [2017 - Some time after we moved back to Massachusetts, ~2004, I saw my young son begin to hit me back when he thought he was in trouble. I realized that he thought hitting was an appropriate thing because that is what I did to him via spanking. I stopped this stupid and lazy way of doing things. I only wish I never started. This is one of my greatest regrets in life].
Ken has now raised three children. Christopher is his and Cheryl’s only biological child together and I’m not sure how things went there because they had moved to Palmer by the time Christopher was born. However, I do know that he has raised three fine children and has managed to turn around Patrick who was definitely on the road to no good if his early childhood was any indication. In the same way, Ken took one of his unofficial children, John, and guided (forced?) him down the right path. John, if you ever read this, you owe him big time because you were a little prick of a teenager and you’d probably be dead by now.
I remember once Ken (or maybe Cheryl) quizzed me why I felt it necessary to continue giving presents to him and his family at Xmas time. I told him that it was only right to do so as he had helped me considerably in the past. I’m not sure if it sank in how much he means to me and that was the only way I knew how to say thank you.
I think he eventually began to see all that he had done for us and for Mom and felt cheated of a normal life. Certainly that is the feeling I get when I have talked to Cheryl even if the sentiment has not directly come from his mouth. He has wandered off in pursuit of his own life with his own family and his own normalcy and, for that, I do not begrudge him one bit. I feel that I am the only one who understands him in this way and I hope that, someday, my other brothers will catch on. In the end, I describe him as a caring soul who was handed a lot of crap to deal with and for that I am grateful and owe him dearly for his pains. Perhaps someday he will come back into the fold but for now we should let him be.
Jerry
I believe Jerry to have grown up under similar circumstances as Ken but it is interesting to note how different they are from each other. I don’t understand why that would happen and can only chalk the difference up to genetics. Jerry was always a wanderer and a liver of life. He was around for a while at Mountainview St. living in the attic and living his mysterious life. I did get occasional glimpses of that life, however. I remember he once brought home a girlfriend and I was mischievously interrupting the goings on. Here Jerry was just trying to make out and here I was hidden behind the chair making goofy sounds to interrupt the loving going on. What an annoying little pain in the ass I was (was??). Another aspect of his life included the Nisenkiers, of which I’ve already talked at length about. For the most part, though, I knew not where he went or did. I cannot recall him having a job as a teenager although that’s not to say that he didn’t. I do not know. He was into the politics of the day and as evidence to this fact I can easily recall the words “Nixon is a fink” written in crayon on the wall of his closet in the attic. He participated in boycotts, a truly radical thing to do at the time. He boycotted leafy lettuce for some reason at one point. Who knows? I have never been into causes like he so I can’t pretend to understand his early 1970s nuttiness. He once told me that he went off to live a commune which was a 70s thing to do. I think he was just trying to avoid the Vietnam War draft. I expect that he was just a rebel like all of his generation around him, holding up the self righteous torch as was required of him. He has changed considerably over the years, certainly much more than any of the rest of us, but his rebel streak still exists in the form of stubbornness (I might add that we are all quite stubborn).
As for his kinder, gentler side, I can remember one birthday when he made a fire engine out of candy. He once took me out for my birthday. I can remember walking with him along Dickinson St and I think we went to Friendly’s on Belmont Ave. We also picked up a pumpkin as my birthday is in October. He certainly tried to be a good brother. He was into music, art, and reading. He had quite the collection of science fiction and fantasy books at one time and I’m sure that Michelle, also the avid sci-fi & fantasy fan, and he would have got along quite nicely way back when. He seemed to be the ladies man because I can remember him walking along with his wife-to-be and her sister down the street and us giving him hell for having two girlfriends. I also seem to recall that he did some artwork but I can’t remember anything specific. Mike picked up that mantel. He was big into music and often had his guitar ready at hand. He introduced me to the dulcimer (an instrument probably only made popular due to the Indian/drug culture connection). I remember that he had a large bottle filled with marbles and water with a tube running to a pipe. At the time of my exposure to this object, I did not realize its true significance. He at least admitted that it was for cooling the smoke before it was inhaled into your lungs and, being a dumb kid, I naturally assumed he meant tobacco smoke. Now, I can’t say for sure what he used it for but I’d bet money that it was for smoking marijuana. I’m not sure that if I asked him today he would even give me a straight answer. In any case, it was cool because you would blow bubbles with it and watch the bubbles rise through the marbles to the top.
After he had married Susan Morganegg and had moved to his own place, I used to stop by their apartment to listen to the stereo and just be a general nuisance to him and Sue. I listened to his Beatles 8-track tapes over and over. In fact, it wasn’t until I met Michelle that I knew any other type of music. To this day, Beatles music is pretty much the only music for which I know the words. I had great times over Jerry and Sue’s place because they let me stay for long periods, even when I showed up unannounced. We talked politics, writing, everything. Jerry and I debated constantly and I was always the devil’s advocate, even to the point of being a devil’s ass. Sue oftentimes stood by and rolled her eyes as Jerry and I immersed ourselves into debates too convoluted or idiotic for her to consider. Jerry showed me how to think logically and linearly. Cause and effect. I started to develop into my own person and, interestingly today, I am quite different from him because of him. I wrote stories a lot at that time and Jerry and Sue were always my willing audience. We talked about good writing and we made puzzles, watched TV, had supper, and ate popcorn.
They brought me and John to interesting places like waterfalls, Gillette Castle, Mt. Greylock, the beach, etc. He took us hiking and I can specifically remember he and I hiking to the top of Mt. Monodnack in New Hampshire and jogging some part of the way down, deliriously ignoring the potential for twisted ankles. And, once we were down and VERY hungry, he took that opportunity to proclaim McDonalds as the best food in the world at that moment (he never ate the stuff, supposedly). Another time I was allowed to do some night driving on our way home from overnight camping in the Adirondacks and I almost ran into some deer. Since I had gotten my license only recently (maybe I was even still using a permit), I was a jangle of nerves the whole way home but I insisted on driving the rest of the way. We went a bit slower than we might have otherwise. To this day the deer crossing sign lifts my foot from the pedal, if only for a moment. My huge photo album collection begins during these times and it is a testament to my emerging happiness. All of the fun things we did I ended up introducing Michelle to later on. I at least had some interesting qualities about me because of their influence and kindness to me. They truly added a lot to my otherwise boring life.
Eventually the kids started coming, first Kenny, then Audrey and then little Amanda. I was around a bunch to babysit Kenny but not so much for the other two. This was my first introduction to taking care of a baby. I can say that I do a lot better job now but back then, oh, the screaming drove me insane (it still does but I can handle it better…most of the time). Michelle and the nurses in the hospital seemed to be surprised that I jumped right in to change Isabelle’s diaper after she was born. To me it was merely a skill I had acquired some 15 years previous which was easily put back into use. I guess I was a little surprised that Michelle was surprised because Michelle had helped me babysit Kenny before. Anyway, after a time I did not see them as much as I became involved in my own emerging life. Michelle, work, college. I was not really around to see Audrey and Amanda’s early years.
Their apartments were always packed full of stuff. I guess that’s what made life over their house interesting. But come moving time, something they seemed to do more than the average person, it was hellish because they had so much STUFF. Lots of books, of course. They always seemed to have lots of stuff and they were continually acquiring more stuff. Sue’s a big packrat and I’m sure Jerry is no better. I used to be quite the packrat myself early on but I’ve learned the art of purging (although my wife might not think so). They still have lots of stuff. But I suppose because they have been home-schooling their children, having lots of stuff is beneficial for the learning process just as it was for me.
In our talks, Jerry and I of course touched upon the subject of religion. We talked of its origins and its necessity. What makes Catholicism attractive or otherwise. He once told me he turned from Catholicism because he couldn’t stand how it had changed. He was irritated that the mass was no longer in Latin or that the priest faced the congregation rather than the alter. Damn purist. Actually, he liked what he had grown up with (as anyone) and it didn’t seem to phase him that the mass had changed about a jillion different times over the centuries. Sometimes he just seems so illogical and I have had a difficult time understanding that because he is the one who nurtured my logic skills. Basically I think his logic skills are overshadowed by his stubbornness. I find it highly amusing that he and his family are now practicing the Catholic faith after having been Protestant for years. Go figure. I guess you just need to find something you like because there isn’t all that much difference among the different Christian religions.
Jerry took on some of the things that Ken did in terms of providing for us kids. He did it in a different way, though. A more personal way. His contributions were not so much monetary (as he’s never had that much) as intellectual and nurturing. His house was a “safe house” of sorts which helped to insulate John and me from our mother. We could always count on Jerry and Sue to provide us with some stability and open our eyes to more worldly issues, issues more relevant than those posed in the sheltered world my mother lived in.
Today, Jerry and his family live in a small house in Indian Orchard, quite close to the old Dubois St. house. I am sure that this was intentional as Jerry seems to be more comfortable these days thinking about the past than the present or future. He seems to harken back to a time when “life was simple”. I do not know if life was any simpler “way back when” but we all believe what we believe. I personally feel life is what you make it. If you make it complex it will be complex and if you strive to keep things simple then it will remain so. Today’s world seems to disgust Jerry. He home-schools his children claiming that the public schools are messed up and can’t teach. Maybe true, maybe not. However, what he doesn’t seem to realize is the fact that we all teach ourselves and that school is merely part of the game. Jerry doesn’t like to play the game. His children are bright, probably not because they were home-schooled, but because they were influenced by the two best teachers any child could ask for. Their parents. Give them the tools you think they need early on and support their efforts throughout life and it won’t matter if the schools are a mess. That is how I made it through. With their help. I have no doubt (for I have heard both Jerry & Sue express this sentiment) that the real reason for home-schooling the kids is to shelter them from the craziness presumably arising in our schools today. Yes, some schools do have a nasty element but if more parents cared as much for their children as Jerry and Sue obviously do, then the nastiness could be kept at bay. I expect that their children will go off into the real world and be somewhat shocked by what they find but will soon adapt…like I did.
Mike
Mike, Mike, Mike. He had the unfortunate luck of being born at the wrong time. Of course he had no control over this matter and, truth be told, who was to know that our family would be so fucked up during Mike’s formative years. Mike had a Dad. Then he didn’t. Mike had a Mom. Mike had a crazy Mom with no one to reign her in. Mike had two older brothers who were essentially out of the house and two younger brothers who teased him very badly, feeding upon his already stressed state. Mike had to change high schools at a time when the family funds were taking a dive. Mike had acne. Mike had to fix things around the house because he was the only one around most of the time. Mike was born to Mom. Mike was born at the wrong time.
Sometimes we all joke about having different fathers (never meaning to insinuate that our Mom was a floozy) and we have a great laugh about it. John’s daddy was the milkman and mine was the mailman and Mike’s daddy was the garbageman. We joke about this and I’m not sure why it came about. We all tend to look alike. Certainly John and Ken look alike (we joke that the milkman came back 14 years later), and me, Jerry and Mike resemble each other. Perhaps because no single one of us acts just like Dad but it is evident that Mom is our mother. Whether any of us cares to admit it or not, we all have a little element of crazy in us and that probably scares us all. It does me.
When we were kids, John and I were particularly annoying to him. Surprisingly, he never left us to suffer Mom alone (until we were older and then we were OK to handle things ourselves) even though we were such bastards. He of all my older brothers felt the most responsible for us and he wore it visibly. His temper was frightening and Mom only served to fuel the flames. How do you deal with a crazy mother and live a normal teenage life? You withdraw into yourself. You don’t invite your friends over (I know that from my own experience). You make excuses not to bring your normal life in touch with your screwball life for fear that they would collide like matter and antimatter. You lock yourself in your bedroom. A lock on the bedroom door of a youngster means something. First it means the child is running away and second it means that the parent is not in control. So Mike was on his own even though living under the same roof.
Now don’t think that Mike was some big troublemaker because he wasn’t. He has told me some mild stories of his youth and I’m convinced his worst offense was trying to get laid or puffing on a cigarette (what boy doesn’t try those things?). For the most part he interested himself with airplane models, rocketry, and drawing. He is very creative, a talent either learned or inherited from Mom. John and I followed in his footsteps when he would let us but I think he liked the fact that his hobbies were HIS hobbies. He was very meticulous and I can get a very clear picture of him hunching over a model in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, striving to apply the paint just so. He worked a lot on his models and back then, the airplane glue was the good stuff, the kind that would get you high. I wonder how many brain cells he lost doing that without enough ventilation? I can very clearly see the rocket model he designed and built on his own. He was quite proud of that but he was really pissed off when his rocket contest entry didn’t even get a nod from the judges and, I’m sure, chalked it up to their stupidity. He reminded me of the evil genius who just isn’t understood.
He wasn’t exactly a hermit if that’s the impression I’m painting. He hung out with friends and did the things that boys do although I cannot say for sure what that might be as John and I were ostracized from his life outside of the house (as little annoying brothers should be). I’m sure for good reason as he could just be a normal kid hanging with normal friends doing normal things without us hanging around reminding him of home. I can remember one story he told us of him and his friends at school just jumping out of the window when the teacher wasn’t looking and having the teacher be utterly perplexed when they walked back into the classroom as if they had just come back from the bathroom (torturing teachers is OK).
Interestingly, John and I were both a nuisance and a responsibility. How do you balance your young life with the need to be a father figure, with the need to be a deflector against Mom? This is how I see his life. He was pulled in two different directions. I might even say that there was a third direction since he had to deal with the animosity between our mother and father. I think he developed some distance from our father and I doubt that it was just because Dad wasn’t around. Likely he came to lay blame (consciously or not) on our father for leaving him with such responsibility and for “abandoning” us. I imagine that our mother added some fuel to the fire by telling unsavory stories about Dad. Who knows but, knowing my Mom, I would not dismiss that possibility. As much as my Mom preached her Catholic morals, her schizophrenia led her down the path to un-Christian-like actions. But enough about that crazy woman.
Mike was there to protect us like a good big brother and yet we were idiot little brothers. I used to wiggle my ass in his direction and for some reason this sent him ballistic. He would chase after me and tell me to stop it or he’d kill me (brothers say that all the time). Once I got very mad at him for not sharing (giving?) something and I whipped a pair of scissors at him and hit him in the back (I too had quite the temper sometimes). Luckily they hit him at an angle and didn’t cause any major damage but you can bet that he was not happy with me. I can’t even remember how he retaliated. Today he laughs that little incident off but someday, 10 years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised at some well-placed vengeance foisted in my direction. I’m watching you, Mike. John and I had this Gregorian chant that also grated on his nerves. We also used it on each other. It went something like this: “Aunt, aunt, aunt”, ad nauseam. This little chant would somehow wrap itself around the inner cortex of the brain and send the receiver into an uncontrollable rage. Oh, we knew what we were doing. For all those times I heartily apologize to Mike. Not to John, though, because he always deserved it.
Mike played in the games that I have previously described and was really a good big brother, in retrospect. To me and John at the time, he was mean to us, even going so far as trying to dole out spankings and such (but never really with much authority for he was just a kid, after all; even we realized that). However, time has made me think differently. He was there when we needed a cage for the rabbit or needed to dig the hole a little further towards China. He was there to bury the pennies in the mud for us and he was there to protect the hot-headed John from the enemies John seemed to be constantly making. He was there to read to us out loud and watch over us through the night when there was no oil for the furnace on a bitterly cold evening. He was there to light the fire in the fireplace. He encouraged our use of “el, el, el” to describe our juvenile lust towards women. He changed the fuses (when we actually had electricity) and helped build the snowmen as big as humanly possible. He shared his pints of ice cream (albeit begrudgingly) that he liked to buy. He shared his bed with me (also begrudgingly) when I was scared and explained to me that the clowns on my pajamas wouldn’t hurt me. He cleaned up the shit that would back up into the 1st floor sink every time we flushed the toilet. He’d siphon off the resulting sewage from the sink (the old fashioned way, starting the siphon by mouth, yecch) and dump it out of the pantry window. The green grass below the window was a testament to that.
This was Mike’s life when we were young. He was born at the wrong time.
Mike went on to the Navy where the regimen probably suited him just right. Nonetheless, he had some problems and ended up coming home early. Ken and Jerry were there to pick up the pieces and John and I were left in the dark about what really happened. We were told he was tired and resting in a Navy hospital. He wrote us a couple of letters from there and I probably only wrote him back once. I didn’t know how to deal with the situation and the truth was never forthcoming from my older bothers. Although they were probably trying to protect me I think it is amusing that they didn’t think that I, having lived with my mother for so long, couldn’t deal with the truth. Needless to say, I do not hold a high regard for family secrets and will try to be as truthful as possible with my own family. Later on Mike told me that he had had a breakdown after having taken some drugs. That’s a big family secret? I think my older brothers are just from a different generation than me.
Mike later married a woman named Cindy Breton. All seemed OK for a while. Michelle and I went out with them and generally had a good time. However, Cindy seemed a bit too controlling of Mike and I know that neither Michelle nor I were too happy with this aspect of her. Jerry recently expressed to me that he thought Cindy was OK. I’m not sure we’re talking about the same Cindy. Anyway, Mike needed to be the goofy guy he had developed into. The free spirit. Here was someone crushing that spirit and it didn’t seem right. Relatives being what they are, we did not express our concerns to Mike, thinking that a) it was none of our business and b) Mike was OK with it. They bought a nice house and happily (so it seemed) gardened and decorated together. As it turned out, they ended up divorced and Mike had to suffer one more tragedy. I hope that Mike looks at it as a fortunate opportunity given to him to find the right woman. She was merely a bumpy practice run.
His right woman came along, interestingly enough, through a meeting arranged by Pat, our Dad’s live-in girlfriend of 25 years. His new bride’s name was Paula Pinto and she definitely has the spirit of living that Cindy lacked. I expect that they will be very happy together and that the sickening (to those cynics around them) puppy love that exudes from them both will continue for a long time to come.
Mike was a brother in the truest sense. I only wish I had appreciated that fact when I was younger. If there is a Heaven, he’s got a place reserved for him, I’m sure. And I don’t talk about Heaven lightly.
John
What is family? It is very different for all involved. It is difficult and loving. It is secretive and open. It is an appreciation for things of the past when appreciation should be in the here and now. As you can see, my relationship with each of my brothers has been very unique. Yet it is interesting that I hold a place in my heart for each of them. My heart is pretty crowded. My memories are surprisingly illuminating to me. I have always known that each brother was special but it has not really been until now that I have tacked the reasons down on paper and sorted it out. I have only woefully explained this importance to my wife over the years. I hope that she can read this and understand my attachment to my siblings a little bit better for she was not around to experience the complexity that was the Poulin family of brothers. We are all linked.