The Wonder Years

Growing up as the youngest of three children, some memories of my early childhood are dim, others very vivid.

When I had the mumps at a young age, I woke up to see my sister and her two friends bent over my bed staring at me. She told her friends at school how hideous I looked with mumps, and that they could come have a look at me. I am pretty sure she charged admission.

The two of us always fainted. Sitting in the church pew, or shopping at Sears - Whooshh!! - down we'd go....My parents couldn't take us anywhere without one passing out. It became so common that my brother wouldn't look twice when he saw one of us being carried down the hallway at school semi-conscious. I even once fainted while on the toilet and knocked my tooth out on the porcelain when falling to the floor. My sister, in her girl scout uniform scurried around the bathroom floor looking for my tooth while my mother, in a panic, picked me up and ran outside with me. When I came to.. I was outside with my underwear around my ankles.

Even though we may have been more dramatic, my brother also had his moments. One morning, he woke up crying and wailing loudly that he had swallowed a nickel. Mother rushed off to the kitchen. She came back with an entire loaf of "Wonderbread." She told him to eat as much bread as he could. After a while, he was sitting in his bed, wide-eyed, stuffing himself with bread, he suddenly recalled that he hadn't swallowed a nickel - he had just dreamed he was a bubble-gum machine!

These were our "wonder" years.