Family

A few posts back, I complained a bit about being alone in the world.  That's not exactly true.  What is true is that I tend to go my own way almost all the time.  Nope, I didn't pop up out of the ground.  I was born into a large family of six children and your standard issue Dad and Mom.  There was a seventh that died as an infant long before I was born.

How does someone brought up in a large family turn out the way I did?  I should be more gregarious, but I am most certainly not.  Perhaps I do not appreciate how fortunate I am to have been born with five siblings.  Appreciation is a good thing, which I do not practice often enough.

Let me go over the family briefly.  I don't want to use names, so I'll use made up names.  One of my brothers has posted here. He uses the handle "Wishbone-T".  I'll use that name in referring to him.  Well, today Wishbone had a problem with his van.  He believes it is the catalytic converter, but why does he believe that?  It turns out that the eldest brother, which I will dub "number one", is a mechanic.  So, number one explained to Wishbone why it could be the catalytic converter.  It just so happens that my catalytic converter is out too.  It would be really bad to be in the middle of nowhere when your vehicle stops running because the metal inside the catalytic converter melted and clogged up the exhaust pipe.  If the exhaust pipe is clogged, you aren't going anywhere.

I'm really glad number one was around to mention that to Wishbone, who in turn mentioned it to me.  That's because I'm considering using my van to go out to my property again.  That catalytic converter needs to be fixed before I go.  I wouldn't want to get stuck out there.

Wishbone and I have not always got along well together.  Call it a family trait, as two of the other brothers have something of a feud going.  It's number one v "Worf".  So, I need to explain who "Worf" is.  Worf was a Klingon in the Star Trek universe.  The Klingons were a warrior race, so my brother was in the military, and he was a warrior.  Hence the name "Worf".  Number one and Worf have a feud that happened shortly after Worf joined the Army.  So, it has been going on a long time.  I don't have problems with either of them, thank goodness.

Thanks to Worf, I got back on speaking terms with my mother before she died.  Also thanks to Worf, I settled up on a minor feud with Wishbone that was threatening to get a bit more serious.  He expressed the concern that we settle our differences before it got out of hand like it did between him and number one.

There are a couple of sisters.  I have a younger sister which I'll call "Nurse Ratched".  That's a bit of a joke that she may not appreciate much.  It's kinda of mean to call her that because she has a heart of gold as far as I'm concerned.  She was at the hospital watching over me when I had my wreck back in the early nineties.  Lots of bad things could have happened and maybe didn't because she was there watching after my interests.  Nurse Ratched is a registered nurse.

Then there's "Hillary".  I'll call her Hillary because she's a big Democrat.  Also, the name for her is for other things that Wishbone said about her, which I will not repeat here.  But we get along great. She has always been very good to me.

My parents have passed away, with Dad going first while I was still in high school.  He was very old school.  So was Mom.  My has the world changed since they were young.  Not always for the better, as I mention so often.

I'm fortunate to have such a family background and let it not be said that I cannot be grateful for that.