The first real memory I have of my brothers was the day my youngest brother, Dennis, was born. That day, my brother Bruce and I were celebrating in the only way two excited kids knew how—by jumping up and down on the roof of an old sedan, singing at the top of our lungs:
"We're going to have a brother! We're going to have a brother!"
Looking back, I think that was the first time I realized Bruce and I could actually have fun together.
Our house wasn’t exactly a mansion—it was a converted chicken coop. Naturally, we always told Dennis he was born in a chicken coop, just to mess with him. But back then, doctors made house calls for deliveries, so technically, he really was!
The next day, Dad casually asked, “Were you boys on the roof of the car?”
Bruce and I must’ve exchanged one of those guilty, wide-eyed glances, because we sure didn’t answer.
“Well, it’s broken,” Dad said flatly.
The car was an old sedan, probably a 1938 Cadillac or maybe a Lincoln. Dad always liked big cars, especially Cadillacs—he swore they were safer. Some of those old cars had a big square or rectangle of canvas on the roof. Not a convertible, just a patch of canvas where the metal should have been.
And that’s exactly where Bruce and I had been jumping.
Like it was a trampoline.
Would you love to hear more of these childhood misadventures?
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