Growing Up In the Middle

2

My life started in a small town in southern Alberta. I was the second of four children. This may come as a surprise to our readers after the ranting in the first chapter – let me explain. In 1971 Duane was born in Lethbridge, I followed in 1973 in Brooks, and Darren trailed in 1974 in Westlock. That was our family, and that is why I am a middle child. For all intents and purposes our family was five, just three little boys. The following stories will leave you no more names to remember. I will refer to my parents as Mom and Dad (deep, huh?). My sister will not appear until we have grown and almost gone, so I consider Darren the youngest, spoiled and treated like the baby for his first 13 years qualifies him.

The seventies were a free time. Of course I feel that way since I was an infant, and elementary school student with not a care in the world. Dad worked for a bank and as you noticed, we moved around a lot. I was only a few weeks old when we left Brooks. I have been back, and it turns out the hospital I was born in has been converted into a care home for the elderly. Needless to say, when I get older I intend fully to die right there where I was brought into this world – after all, how many people get a chance to complete a perfect cycle like that? Morbid? I don’t know, I think it’s practical and would look good in my obituary. “Kevin led a full and happy life, his greatest achievement occurring with his last breath – a moment he awaited for the past three years here in Brooks home for the Elderly. Not content to stop accomplishing great things in his youth, he moved into the home that was the hospital he was born in. During a wild chase through the halls in a wheelchair, his end came when a strategically placed doorstop failed to block access to the basement stairs. Fittingly, he left this world, not only in the same building he entered it, but with the same blood-curdling scream.” Who has an article like that written these days? What else can I do to add that special zip to the newspaper column? Sure I could climb a tall mountain, but that takes time and training. I could invent something or donate something valuable, but that takes education and money. Dying in the building you are born in, is simple and frees up my life for doing things I enjoy.

Like I said, after Brooks, and a short stint way north, we lived in Westlock where Darren was born and I have my first memories. Duane had a dog, Snoopy. I would like to blame his extremely uncreative name for this beagle on his tender age of just three. After all he also had a teddy bear that was a dog named “puppy”. I say I’d like to, but I can’t. Duane is hard to describe. I don’t want to hurt his feelings when he reads this, but it’s hard to avoid when you plan to say the least negative thing about the kid who was sure he was born perfect. Duane had the answer to everything when we were kids – was he right? No, but at least he had an answer for his younger brothers who looked up to him. You have to admire someone who at least makes the effort to think up believable lies when he is asked a question. Unfortunately, his know-it-all attitude went to his head at a young age, and made him fairly hard to live with. We’ll get in to my bed-wetting problems in a later chapter, suffice it to say now that if I had a dime for every time Duane told me he hasn’t wet his bed since he was two – I’d be too rich to worry about writing for a living. Duane has done some things right in his life, and he makes sure everyone knows about each one of them. So before he is offended by the remainder of this book, Duane I want to say kudos on mastering that bed-wetting thing. You really got me on that one!

Snoopy was a vicious little mutt that I have vague memories of – all bad. I know little about how long we had him or how he died, I just know he didn’t like me and I didn’t like him. We have little record of this animal (the first of many) except for a cute picture of Duane in his sleepers with the demon dog cuddled up beside him. Any attempt to pass this picture in a photo album would result in Duane’s narration of “his dog, Snoopy”, and a short story about how he loved this dog and they were the best of friends. Duane was the ripe old age of three when the mutt died, so we would doubt his doleful anecdotes, but what did we know, we were one and zero when the dog died. I am pretty sure the movie Homeward Bound was loosely based on an adventure of Duane and Snoopy. I think they changed Duane’s character to a cat to appeal to a broader audience. Come to think of it The Littlest Hobo may have paid Duane some royalties as well.

Westlock memories are sparse though. Darren was born and with him “the Lee boys” became one of those three-word phrases that strike terror in hearts like “Jack the Ripper” or “Harry Potter Memorabilia”. We were identified as a group rather than individually. Twenty years later I would be asked if I was the oldest of “the Lee boys”, or the youngest. Why do people never guess “the middle one”?

I remember a lot of snow in the winter, and Dad’s snowmobile getting stuck. We lived near the edge of town in a mobile home (surprise!) and loved to be pulled behind the Ski-Doo on our wooden sled.

Maybe this started our toughening-up, the toboggan had rope running along both sides that were to be held onto. Do not under any circumstances hold on to your brother in front of you. Sure this would be more secure and safer; it would also keep your sleeves from getting filled with snow. But think of the consequences of falling off the toboggan and taking someone with you. Trust me: even with a thick coat on you can feel a boot to the stomach when you are lying in the snow. This insane contraption has one other feature that makes it unique: a curved front end. If you have never seen a toboggan, stop reading right here, close this book and step away. Ours was a long board – classic pine wood with four distinct sections. The blue vinyl pad designed to give comfort made it too hard to sit on and was discarded. The first one to the toboggan always sat in the second section from the front – this was never me! Duane, being oldest and most crafty would get this second position; or the sweet spot as we called it. The second one to the sled would try to sit at the third position. Here is how this works. Darren, being youngest could not sit in front. His fragile nature made him cry if any snow hit him in the face; a condition that curiously continued into his teens. It was safest to have him behind Duane, no matter where he sat, as he would block all snow for his smallest sibling. Remember, you can’t go down a hill without someone in the front. In spite of my continued desperate pleas, I was someone on the sliding hill. I mention this curved front for a reason, and anyone who has tried going through powder snow in a toboggan will attest to this: the curve is the most efficient way to get every orifice filled with snow. Zipper up to the nose, gloves tucked into sleeves, boots tightened, and touque pulled so low one can barely see to “steer”. Snow gets in everywhere and the frozen band of skin across my exposed face tingles after every run. Is that sweat from the abject terror I just experienced, or is it just snow melting on my face? Either way it means I still have a pulse! Another successful run! By the way, no one steers a toboggan. Dad would point it out of danger’s way at the top of the hill and give ‘er a kick.

Second position was ideal, as the front “driver” took the brunt of the snow spray. If anyone is going to fall off; it will be from the back making him last longer. In addition, if the back person takes you with them when they go, you get to kick them; just once, we are not savages! If you try to stay on in the second position and grab on to the front man, you can’t pull him off anyway as he is part frozen to the chains on the curved death trap, and part wrapped into this contraption; so you likely will not get a boot to the gut at the bottom of the hill. If you are heading for danger you can easily bail from the second position and save the life of the man on behind you. The driver will go where the toboggan goes, and there was nothing you could do. A hero’s greeting from the back man, and no guilt. Is this a perfect way to harden criminals, or what? This little rant about our winter-time fun went much farther than just as small children down snow drifts and being pulled behind a snowmobile, even as teenagers, the sight of the toboggan was more than we could resist for a slide down a bigger hill. Winter was the best!

Another fun past-time in winter is hockey. Hockey was our life, and we would play mostly on the street in front of our house. In the summer we would use a tennis ball, and in the winter the same tennis ball, frozen solid, would hurt twice as much. I think our hockey stories deserve an entire chapter later on, stay tuned.

Being the middle child does not automatically mean being in the middle; quite the opposite in fact – most times we are on the outside looking in.

If you have not noticed, my parents made the mistake of naming the first and third children names that start with ‘D’ and the middle child is named Kevin with a ‘K’. I know it seems silly to an adult, but when kids are kids, this type of thing is basis for discrimination of the worst kind. Duane and Darren were the best of friends. I attribute this to the larger age gap, being as I was close in age to both – 22 months behind Duane, and 19 months ahead of Darren. That left about three and a half years between them, and that was enough to have a proper big brother relationship. Darren wanted to be Duane, and admired his vast knowledge. I, on the other hand, was slightly wiser and knew that Duane was making it all up. To his credit, he could make the most amazing stories sound completely plausible. When there are three kids in the family and two are friends, the result is trouble.

We moved to Hinton, right in the midst of the Rocky Mountains, before “the boys” started school. We moved into a house owned by the bank, a rock stucco house with a band of pink siding around the base. It was perfectly located only a half block from our elementary school, and minutes from downtown where Dad worked. It was a small town and nothing much happened there, which was fine by us; we could make our own excitement.