The photo will forever live in infamy
among my brothers and me. In the shot above we see my brother John
swinging a giant, inflatable crayon (you don't see enough of those around
these days). On the right side of the photo with his back turned is
my brother Dan. To the left of the photo is a prudish middle-aged
housewife in a red sweater who is about to get drenched in Sprite.
In fact, Sprite is about to go everywhere. It's like observing a
frame of the Zapruder film right before Kennedy is shot. The only
thing missing is a man twirling a black umbrella in the
background.
I'll be honest - the details of this
tale are a little foggy for the simple reason that it happened fifteen
years ago and many of my precious childhood memories were eradicated
by petty, trivial facts taught to me in school (whose only
purpose was to help me pass the next test and nothing more). I can
tell you who the fifteenth president of the United States was or how DNA
reverse transcriptase works, but I'll be damned if I can recall a single
detail from three-fourths of my birthdays. But I digress.
This occurred at the Fall Festival at
Brooks Elementary, that I can tell you. The Sprite was knocked over,
the woman soaked as well as many of our possessions which are resting on
the table right in front of Dan. My mom was away at the restroom,
and she returned after the Sprite was splattered all over creation.
By then, John had pulled a Speedy Gonzalez and was nowhere to be
seen. As a result, both Dan and I ended up taking the blame. I
don't know why this particular piece of pettifoggery stuck in our craws,
but it just did. Dan and I knew we weren't to blame, but what could
we do? It wasn't until the end of the school year (May 1991), when I
received my yearbook that everything became clear. There, in the
back of the yearbook's festivities section was the above
picture.
Naturally, Dan and I paraded it before
my mom. She merely shrugged and swore she didn't know what we were
talking about. She didn't remember blaming us for anything of that
nature. Blast! The steam was taken our of our victory.
Still, Dan and I knew the truth and when the yearbook committee found out
it was my brother in the photo and sent it to us, I took claim of
it. So the photo has an element of symbolism behind it, because to
me and my brother it represents the fact that parents aren't always right.
But as you get older you learn that it doesn't matter whether your parents are right
or wrong. What matters is if you are living under their roof or
not.
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