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Apr 2006 Issue
by Dave Ellis
Last night I was reminiscing about all the times I’ve reminisced. By writing about it today I’m reminiscing about the reminiscing of the reminiscing. Freaky. The main memory I was coddling was the last family gathering. In my family we gather for a meal after major milestone of life, like my nephew Daniel going to the temple (called to Brazil!).
Although it doesn’t take much a of a milestone to get the Ellis family around a table, last month I had a flat tire fixed and boy did we celebrate! It was The Feast of the Repaired Tire. I brought the doughnuts.
At these parties the family sits around and swaps stories about each other. These stories mean something to our family; they are part of our identity. They also reveal our most embarrassing moments to any new dinner guests. My brothers used our last gathering to recount all the times they ‘teased’ me. One man’s teasing is another man’s torture. Here are some of the stories they shared. I hope by getting these out in the open the healing process will begin, if not I’ll try antibiotics.
I’m a very heavy sleeper; just ask my wife. When I was twelve I was taking one of my patented Sunday afternoon naps when my older bother (no typo there) Bryan decided to jokingly tell me that I was late for the bus.
Now he could have gently nudged me and said, “Hey Dave, you’re late for the bus…just kidding. Go back to sleep while I sing soothing lullabies.” Instead he chose the more aggressive route, “Dave! Wake up! You’re late for the bus!” I of course kept a cool head and climbed up the back of the couch looking for the front door, which strangely enough is not located there.
I have many other sleep related pranks that were pulled on me. I’ll forego the rest in case you ever have dinner with us and don’t want repeats. Instead I will tell the tale of the time I was exposed to the world as a tight-whitey wearer. Again, this happened when I was in my early, formative teen years.
I was climbing down a steep ladder from our attic, which only had an outside door which happened to face our neighbor’s house. As I very cautiously made my descent one of the two older dorks climbed up the ladder and pulled my sweat pants down to my ankles. I was stilled covered, by my tight-whities, but I could not reach down to pull my pants up for fear of falling.
Falling off of a ladder is funny enough, but falling off a ladder with your pants down is side-splittingly funny and I didn’t want my family members to risk injury from laughing. That’s the kind of brother I am. I made it down the ladder but to this day I will not climb down a ladder in sweat pants, which has really hindered my employment options.
I may sound bitter, but then again, what are older brothers for? No really, what are they for? I still don’t know why they are needed at all. One thing they did do is help me ponder my life with questions that made me think, like “Why are you hitting yourself” which is really just a game where they take your hand and make you hit yourself while repeating the question.
That game really makes you think. Usually about what life is like for an only child. Yet each event is a building block to who I am and I’ll never forget it, as long as the Ellis family has reason to celebrate.
