Pregled posta

Marketing

Day 19 of Gratitude
My Brother

This is my little brother. He has been taller than me since he was 12 years old. For most of his life he's had some sort of fro-ish hairstyle going on so he has been taller since about 8 but I don't like to count that. Although we are siblings and he is going into his final year of high school I have unfortunately only seen him for about 16 months of his life. I know he's getting all grown up but to me he is still my baby brother.

I remember taking him to the park one day when we were younger. He wasn't even in school yet. He really liked the slide so that's all we ever did. Up to the top, down to the bottom, and repeat until you heard mom call for you. On this particular day we got to the top of the slide and a kid started sneezing. I didn't pay any attention to it. As we went down the slide I remember hearing him say "Hey! You can't go down there!" I ignored the boy, I was ten and it was a slide. Why wouldn't I be allowed to? When we got back to the top of the slide the boy started sneezing again. He stepped in front of us and wouldn't let us go down the slide. He said he was allergic and we needed to leave. We had to leave? If you're allergic don't you leave the park? He continued on with his sneezing and finally said "I'm allergic to black people *achoo achoo* get out of here! *achoo achoo*" I didn't know what to do. I remember going down the slide one last time, not sure how we got past him, and then as we left he sneezed loudly over and over again from the top of the slide.

This was my first experience with racism. Ten years old. I think the boy was the same age. Breaks my heart to think that this reaction was probably just a mirror of what he had seen people in his life do. I've always been strangely protective of my brother since then. As protective as can be from roughly 1,000 km away. I have always cared and worried about him. It's been hard watching him grow up from so far away. Seeing him once a year. Things change so fast. He is an amazing guy. So smart. He is going to be able to do anything he puts his mind to. I know families say that about each other all the time but it's not always true. I look forward to seeing where life takes him or, more likely, where he takes life.

I am so happy he is a part of my life and if he doesn't kill me for writing any of this, I'll be happy to still be a part of his too.

Album #1
1. Linda Wilber Holton, and Jerry Worley
2. Linda Wilber Holton, Jerry Worley, Everett Partain (sunglasses)
3. Carl Don Logan (red shirt) John Thompson and Junetta Midgley McCoy
4. Ted Kilgore John Thompson
5. Ted Kilgore and John Thompson
6. Jerry Worley, John Thompson, J.C. Holton
7. Blue Shirt is Margaret Smith Johnson, Dixie Bishop Shrum, Barbara Butler Rockman, Linda Wilber Holton, Pat Campbell Wright
8. Pat Campbell Wright, Margaret Smith Johnson, Dixie Bishop Shrum, Barbara Butler Rockman, Linda Wilber Holton, Junetta Midgley McCoy
9. John Thompson, Louis Miller and Carl Don Logan at table, Jerry Worley
10. Louis Miller, Don Wright, Carl and John Thompson
11. Ted Kilgore, Pete Hopkins, Ed Burden
12. Sue Mahorney and her husband, Charlotte Evans Bates
13. Dixie Bishop Shrum, Margaret Smith Johnson, Nancy Henson Mihura
14. Bob White’s wife Mary, Pete Hopkins's wife Kathleen (Ted and Pete)
15. Nancy Henson Mihura,s husband Jim Mihura and Bob White
16. Sue Mahorney
17. Junetta Midgley McCoy, Pat Campbell Wright and Linda Wilber Holton
18. Junetta Midgley McCoy, Howard and Lynda Frank
19. Kathleen Hopkins, Mary White, Lynda Frank, Junetta Midgley McCoy, LeNell Thompson John's wife
20. same bunch
21. Beth Shaw and husband Bill Wilson, Mary Lou Cooper Callaway, Dixie Bishop Shrum and Ed Burden
22. same
23. same
24. John Thompson and Howard Frank
25. Linda Wilber Holton and J.C. Holton
26. John Thompson and LeNell
27. J.C. Holton and John Thompson
28 Margaret Smith Johnson and Sherman Floyd
29 Class Photo Top row J.C. Holton, Margaret Smith Johnson, Howard
Frank, Maxie Manlove, Carl Don Logan, Everett Partain,
Ed Burden, Jerry Worley, Charles Curtis
NEXT ROW Linda Wilber Holton, Louis Miller, Bill Sutterfield, John
Thompson, Patsy Mathis Pitchford, Dixie Bishop Shrum, Nancy Henson Mihura,
Darian McDowell, Junetta Midgley McCoy, Bob White, Janice
Worley Soudbash NEXT ROW Shirley Walker Carman, Pete Hopkins, Margaret
Kitchens, Sue Mahorney, Hilda Baker Culver, Kenneth Didway,
Mary Lou Cooper Callaway, Beth Shaw Wilson, Diane Shiebe Judd, Charlotte
Evans Bates BOTTOM ROW Ted Kilgore, Dale McIlroy,
Leslie Cooper, Pat Campbell Wright, Barbara Butler Rockman, Gwen
Morgan Marlin, Vera Evans McGruder