Family

Dave sez,

I'm the youngest in my family. My sister, Paula, is the oldest. I have two older brothers. Let me share some cool memories with you.

When I was a younger kid, my sister would pull me up on her feet and I would get to pretend I was flying. It was great. We were very close growing up. So close, that when she went away for a weekend with friends, I had a little too much chocolate and blew up like blueberry Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I managed to deflate by the time she got home. She's married to a really great guy. My nephew Sean is literally in Paradise. He served our country a couple years in the Marines in Afghanistan; now he's in Hawaii. I keep telling him to say "Hi!" to Tom Sellick for me! My nephew Kevin and his wife, Erin, live close by their folks with their little sweetheart, Ivy.

It was right around the time that my sister got married that my Mom started working a little bit more on my reading skills. I started reading books. As a reward, she introduced me to comic books.

Not too long afterward, my older brother Tim took me to see Star Wars.

My brothers got me interested in sports. Mostly baseball. My brother Matt, and Tim, loved baseball and taught me how to pitch and run bases. Matt always told me to keep my eye on the ball. The first time I pitched, he kept telling me that. Keep your eye on the ball, baby brother, he said. I did. I kept my eye on it as he hit it back to me. I kept my eye on it the bigger and bigger it got. It got as big as a moon ("That's no moon...")

We all had a good laugh over the black eye I got from the worn league ball. We still laugh over that.

Cathy and I hadn't had a chance to see my sister and the family since Cathy's birthday last year. We hadn't had a chance to introduce them to their new nephew, Justin.

We didn't want him to be nervous about meeting them. So I started telling him that I really wanted him to meet his Uncle John and Aunt Paula. He has a big family, with a lot of aunts and uncles, but these were the real deal. He even wrote on his calendar on the Friday before Memorial Day, "Going to si (sp) Pop's sister". He was a little nervous with the introductions, but he warmed right up to them. It's good that he could tell right away, just how cool we already know they are.

I told my sister that her nephew is the one of the Midwest producers and distributors of sarcasm. "I like him already!" she told me.

We had a bit of a bumpy patch. We went go-carting and Justin was all excited to drive. Until he was measured for height, and he was told that he was too short to drive his own cart. That was a major bummer. Until Mommy got him into one of the fastest carts on the planet. She lapped me, John and Kevin, with Justin waving, yelling "Hi!" and laughing at how slow we were.

The rest of the weekend was fantastic! A little bit of soccer. A pool party. Some Spongebob. Usually, Justin gets a bed and we sleep on the floor on an air mattress. This time, we got a bed, he got an air mattress. We wore him out so that he fell asleep and had sweet dreams! He dreamed that he was the Black Power Ranger fighting Moogers.

So, all in all a pretty awesome weekend!