Sunday, April 27, 2008

My brother Benjamin





My brother Benjamin died young. He had one daughter, Tam, to whom I am Auntie. I was nine years old when he was born and I remember it well. The most vivid thing I remember about his birth was that he kicked our brother, David, out of the of the "only male grandchild" and "the baby" category all at the same time with some results that we will not go into since I value my brother David.

Benjamin was an instigator all his life. I use that word deliberately where some might use "trouble maker" but many of the things he instigated were not trouble. He had a good friend when we lived in Bauxite. What those two could not think up could not be thought up. We lived in a company house that had the whole Hurricane Creek bottom as a backyard and in those days children were free to roam as they pleased. We roamed. We did things I am sure my mother would have lost her mind over if she had known. But one vivid and I mean VIVID memory I have is of the afternoon Ben and his friend found and killed a huge black snake and then threw it at me.


His grin was infectious and he had more energy than anyone I have ever known. In adulthood that energy went into his career and his daughter, Tam. He made friends everywhere, he was very much like Daddy who never met a stranger and always knew all our neighbors no matter where we lived.

We kind of got out of close touch during the last years of his life, so I will treasure always Christmas 1984. I had been evacuated from Bogota because of a kidnapping threat against me so was home that Christmas just by chance. Because of that we were all at home for Christmas for the first time in years. I remember him that Christmas, particularly one day when he got a call from his office and he was standing in the kitchen at the Prattsville house of my parents in a green and while striped polo shirt, talking on the phone trying to explain something to someone who just wasn't getting it.
By the next spring he was gone, in body, but not in spirit. I see so much of him in Tam, the restless energy and interest in everything. He would have been proud of her.



4 comments:

Doubtful Muse said...

My dad's impact was greater than his years. He's been gone longer (for me) than I had him, but in the time I was with him, I picked up a number of stupid jokes, habits, and tricks! (Mike never met him, but he could probably list chapter and verse of the Ben Barber "head em up; move em out", sing Red River Valley, bluff em at poker and if you can't win, spill your drink on the cards bag of tricks -- all of which I have done!) We moved all those times, and I had to make new friends every time, so my dad was my number one buddy until I was a snotty teenager. I was his golf caddy, his frisbee and yard darts partner. I carted bricks for him to build the patio. He taught me to whip the boys in tether ball. Some girls tried to beat me up when we moved to Chicago; he taught me how to thrash them (hope my mother never finds out about that!). He bought me unicorns for my collection for every birthday and Christmas. I still have them. I love that you wrote this. It made me cry. I love the photos too... I'm surprised he was able to bring himself to kill that snake; he hated them so much. He must have REALLY wanted to get you with it!

tamsaunt said...

I have always suspected that the other boy actually killed the snake. But while I can't remember what I did to make them throw the snake at me, I am sure it was deserved!

Doubtful Muse said...

Remember that old saying, "Payback is a bitch?" When I was about 6, my mother was trying to get me to do something I didn't want to do and I pointed at her foot and started screaming that she had a lizard on her and she started screaming too. He came running in there to see what was wrong and broke his toe! (Boy oh boy was I in BIG trouble!) He had a kid that was as awful as he probably was, maybe even worse. I still remember the look on his face when I decided to jump out of a tree onto the back of the horse that belonged to the boy next door. The one that hadn't been ridden in 5 years. Or when I decided to "explore" (break in to) the abandoned house in the woods. Or when I went ice skating. On the lake. In Mountain Home. It doesn't really get that cold in Mountain Home... He was remarkably calm about such things, although I didn't appreciate it at the time. I probably deserved a good beating more than once!

Unknown said...

Okay so I can’t read these stories about Ben without telling one of my own. He was responsible for my early experiences with women…okay so woman….he condescended to take me with him one Halloween night to go out with his friends to do Halloween things. He had his girlfriend with him (and Tam as I remember it, it wasn’t your mom). There were four of us sitting in the front seat and I was between him and his girlfriend. I must have been around 12 or so and sitting that close to a girl was pretty incredible. As I was enjoying my position in life (Ben was driving) we pulled up to a traffic light and the guys in the back of the car pulled out a carton of rotten eggs. They yelled outside at the car sitting beside us and the other car rolled down its windows. Immediately 2 rotten eggs followed and Ben took off. The car chased us and we finally escaped. We pulled up in “downtown” Bauxite (for those of you who don’t know “downtown” Bauxite it was 4 buildings) next to the community center and got out of the car and as we got out of the car the other car pulled up and the three men got out of the car with jack handles….fortunately the Bauxite police department showed up….okay the constable who must have been 100 years old showed up and ran the rotten eggs guys off. Ben had to go appear in court to explain the whole situation. It was a memorable Halloween for a 12 year old on so many levels. Ben was responsible for my growing up in so many ways….to this day I still see situations which remind me of him.