My Two Younger Brothers

My sisters were not the only ones who had a big influence on me...my brothers did as well.  While we were together for much of our growing-up, I will treat them a little more separately, as the experiences were very different for me.

Dave was born when I was three...almost literally.  I was born January 17th, 1953, Dave January 18th, 1956.  I do not remember life in the Lambson home when Dave was not in it.  I remember going to the hospital right after his birth...they did not accord visits to the likes of three-year-olds, so I waved at Mom through a window.  She held Dave up, and he was mostly yellow...the effects of a high bilirubin count I would later discover.  They called it "jaundiced".  Fortunately it was not fatal nor permanent, but it may have been a harbinger of the health issues Dave would have early on.

For much of his life as a baby and toddler Dave suffered from terrible earaches, with a side-effect doctors described as Bell's Palsy, which caused paralysis to half his little face (here is a link to a Mayo Clinic description if you are interested:  Mayo Clinic - Bell's Palsy    ).  I only vaguely remember the many nights my parents were up in the middle of the night trying to administer what comfort they could.  As a result, Dave wore a little hat with ear flaps whenever he went out, even in summer (I don't think they had come up with putting tubes in your ears by then).

That also might explain some of the crazy things he did as a pre-schooler, to wit: running down the hall, through the living room, and putting his head through the plate glass in the bottom panel of our outside door (Plexiglas not yet in vogue), and opening a cut on his forehead that took forever to stop bleeding; or the night (I admit complicity in this) Mom & Dad were absent,  and he and I were jumping up and down on our well-worn couch when he suddenly decided to alter his direction and jump in the middle of an inlaid glass coffee table nearby, breaking it neatly in half (fortunately the only casualty on this one was the coffee table).  

There was the time (he is captured on film on this one) he desecrated our birthday cake.  Because our birthdays were so close Mom would routinely bake one birthday cake for both of us.  They were always creative and amazing. This particular year she made a carousel, on a lazy-suzan so it could be turned, with a plastic doily canopy, and animal crackers to serve as the various animal rides.  Dave just couldn't resist.  He would go over, grab an animal cracker in each hand, bite the heads off, THEN REPLACE THEM ON THE CAKE!  He did this for several iterations.  Fortunately, Mom had extra cookies...

We did share in many games and escapades.  He was much more of a hunter than I was, but we both enjoyed the outings, and some of our hunting time overlapped in spite of our three-year age difference. Two stories worth noting, but one will suffice for this writing:

Dad used to pheasant hunt in some of the fields that were on the south and west sides of Orem, and Dave and I and would go along sometimes.  On this occasion Dave, who had an even bigger fascination with nature than I did, found an abandoned pheasant nest with a couple of unhatched eggs still in it...no telling how long it had been sitting there.  Against Dad's better judgment, he yielded to Dave's  pleas and let him keep the nest.  All was well until it was time to go home.  Dave had placed the nest in one of the hand-wells on the rear door, and as we prepared to leave he inadvertently leaned his elbow into the well.  The result was the most horrible, pervasive, consuming stench I have ever experienced.  Of course the eggs were rotten, and this went beyond any rotten egg smell.  We all had to flee the car and its immediate atmosphere.  It wasn't until some time later the stench had subsided to the point we were able to return to the car so Dad (of course) could clean out the mess and we could return home (this was not Dave's last encounter with the various stenches of nature 😃)

.

Dave was always a dead on voice imitator (probably where Steve gets it) and could crack us up with his renditions of Popeye, while doing a little sailor jig.  While I was on a mission, he sent me a cassette tape (the Marco Polo of the time) with one 60 minute side completely filled with a western tale about a cattle drive (we've got to get these cattle to Belle Fourche before sundown!) where he imitated, in turn, an old-timer (the narrator), John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Clint Eastwood, Walter Brennan, and Ken Curtis (Festus on Gun Smoke).  I played it for all my companions, and it never failed to have them in stitches.

Our romantic paths crossed only once.  Right after I returned from my mission to the mid-west, we decided to do a "creative" double-date (trendy at the time), where the object of our affection would not initially know who the suitor was.  This would be accomplished by an arranged "kidnapping", where I would pick up his date, he would pick up mine, and then blindfold them until they were delivered to the beginning point of the date.  It was every bit as ridiculous as it sounds (we were not very creative, as it turns out), and I am not sure either of us went on a date with either of those two again.

So many memories, so little time...they will have to wait.

Next time: Jeff!