The Airplane by Paul Delgado

                                                               The Airplane

                                                 by Paul Delgado

When I was eleven years old, I loved building model airplanes. Most of my favorite models were Revell plastic kits that were replicas of fighter jets or WWII aircraft. The best model I ever built was a yellow Curtiss Jenny. Thinking back on it now, it was probably my favorite not only because it was a biplane with historical significance, but it was also the first plane my mother learned to fly. When she was eighteen, she took flying lessons in a Curtiss Jenny and told me how incredible it was the first time she flew in an open-cockpit aircraft in 1940. 

I have always been fascinated by flight, and as I worked my way through my Revell favorites, I eventually started to experiment with wooden balsa kits. 

My friend and next-door neighbor, David, was a year older and talented for his age in model airplane construction. The models David built were perfect. The paint was meticulously applied, and his decals were perfectly aligned. Meanwhile, my models were built with haste but with lots of enthusiasm!

It was a typical Southern California summer, and David and I put away our indoor hobbies for the most part as the adventures outside beckoned. But one day we decided we would build a larger plane; one we could actually fly. Well, not so much fly in the real sense of the word, but one that would fuel our imaginations, where we could soar above the clouds. Even if in reality we were flying down Florita Street along the pavement.

At the time, my parents were remodeling the living room of our house in La Mirada, and the front lawn was littered with scrap from the demolition. There was an abundant supply of wooden beams, plywood, and nails that called to our imaginations. They were the perfect building materials needed to construct our plane. 

Sitting at the backyard patio table one afternoon, we started to draw the plans for our grand idea. After a couple of hours of “amateur engineering,” we completed the drawing for our design.

First, we needed a fuselage, and we selected a discarded 6” x 6” x 60” wooden beam from the scrap pile. Digging a bit deeper into the scrap heap, we found several discarded sheets of plywood that would work for the wings.  We determined the plywood would also be the best material to construct the tail. 

We continued to poke around the scrap but were unable to find any additional pieces for the tail section.  

David and I looked about to see if there were any suitable alternatives we could use, when suddenly both our eyes locked on the neatly stacked sheets of new plywood on the opposite side of the driveway. The builders had started to stage the materials for the new construction, and the plywood was front and center. I would need to ask my dad if we could use the new wood, but he was at work, yet I was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind if we used it. After all, he was always encouraging when it came to my hobbies.

Now that we had the “airframe” sorted, we needed to figure out how we were going to build the more mechanical parts of the plane. 

Building the “landing gear” undercarriage was going to be a problem… Nailing together some wood for the airframe was easy, but the landing gear posed a challenge. I don’t know about David, but gluing the landing gear together in model building took a lot of patience and skill. They were the fiddly bits, and I had more than one model with crooked struts and wonky wheels. And yet, for all of David’s expert model-building skills, I was pretty sure he didn’t have the experience or the tools for metalworking or whatever else was needed to build the “landing gear” for our plane.

Back at the patio table, we racked our brains as to how we could build a sturdy undercarriage. Our idea had been shaping up so nicely, and just when defeat was starting to creep in, my little brother came running across the patio pulling his red Radio Flyer wagon. David and I looked at each other; it was the “a-ha” moment! Distracting my brother with a fake mission, we sent him off and began unscrewing the front wheel assembly from the wagon. Our excitement fueled our creativity. What other toys could we scavenge to complete our plane? We had the fuselage, the landing gear; all we needed now was a tail wheel… A-ha! My little sister’s roller skates! 

David and had grouped together the materials for our plane. We had the wood and a box of forgotten nails, the landing gear, and a tail wheel. We borrowed the seat from my bicycle, and now we had everything we needed to start building. 

Sawing the plywood planks into wings and tail section by hand was tedious and tiring. However, one of the perks of living in a neighborhood is that there will always be a pal who is curious as to what you’re up to. After promising a ride in our airplane, we had all the labor we needed. 

A couple of weeks passed, and our focus was interrupted by riding bikes, baseball, and swimming. However, it wasn’t too long before our plane started to take shape.

David and I continued to scavenge materials for our plane. We found a can of light blue paint leftover from when David’s mom repainted his little brother’s room.

 We began with the fuselage, but our excitement quickly faded as we realized there wasn’t going to be enough paint to coat the wings and tail. We returned to David’s garage to see if there were any other paint leftovers from his mom’s DIY projects. In the back of a metal cabinet, we found a couple of cans of Rust-Oleum paint. The bright yellow wings and tail were a perfect complement to our light blue fuselage.  

Our house in La Mirada sat at the top of the street. The gentle incline of the road made the perfect runway for a “test flight”. Finally, on one Friday afternoon, we proudly pushed our plane out of the makeshift hangar that was our garage and onto the street.

By now, news of our airplane had reached the far corners of our neighborhood. There wasn’t a kid from our block who wasn’t watching in awe as we rolled out our airplane onto the “tarmac.” 

We decided David would take the inaugural flight. Aligning our plane in the middle of the street, David straddled the plane and settled onto the bicycle seat. David took hold of the rope we had attached to the wings. Pushing from the tail and wings, along with pals Gary and  Kenny, we started running down the street, and as the airplane picked up speed, we gave the tail section a final push and watched David “fly” down the street, steering and braking with his feet. 

It was my turn next. David and I swapped places, and then he and our pals pushed me even faster. 

After a couple of hours, the rope began rubbing blisters on our hands. My feet had gotten hot, and the rubber soles of my Keds tennis shoes were wearing down. We finally decided to let Kenny and Gary have a try, but their mom called them in for dinner, and we decided to call it quits for the day.

David and I pushed the plane back into the “hanger.” What a day we had! As we recounted the day’s excitement, deep down we both wished our plane could have really flown. 

The next day, as we were sitting on the grass in front of David’s house, I turned to him and said, “I have an idea…”

“I wonder if we launched it from the roof…Would it fly?”

Not giving it a single thought, we instantly agreed it was worth a chance. Although we would need to wait until our moms were out of the house, as we both knew they would never approve of the “test flight”.

Saturday morning started pretty much the same as every other day that summer. David spent the night, and Mom made us pancakes for breakfast. My dad took a last swig of coffee, folded the newspaper, rose from the kitchen table, and kissed my mom on the cheek. He said he was going into the shop for a bit and would be back just after lunch. There was a sale at Bullock’s, and my mom was going shopping with David’s mom. They would probably be home shortly after Dad. David and I looked at each other; this was our window to test-fly our plane.

Rounding up some of our neighborhood pals, David and I climbed onto the roof above the garage and hoisted up the plane with a bit of rope while our buddies pushed it up from below. We positioned the plane with its nose pointing down toward the driveway below. We talked it over and decided I would be the test pilot, as David had taken the “inaugural flight”. I climbed aboard and settled into position, ready to launch.

David held the plane with the rope, and I gripped tightly to the “steering harness”. But just before letting go of the plane and starting my takeoff roll, David said, “Maybe we should test-fly the plane first without a pilot just to make sure it flies ok”.

I nodded in agreement and climbed off. Together we released the rope, and away she went.

The plane rapidly rolled down the steep roof, and we held our breath as her wheels crossed the roof threshold…

But instead of the beautiful, graceful flight we imagined, the plane plummeted nose first toward the driveway and slammed to the ground with the force of a forge hammer. We watched in shock as our plane splintered into pieces on the concrete below. The tail section snapped and shattered and sent my sister’s roller skate skittering down the drive. 

We were shocked at the ferocity and violence of the crash. We stood and stared at each other with our mouths agape. I let out an almost inaudible “Oh man…”

My mind was racing. I was petrified that I could have been plastered on the concrete below. But before I could contemplate my near miss any further, David snapped me back to the present, yelling, “They’re home!” Our moms were back from shopping and were pulling into the driveway.

My mom parked the car. She and David’s mom jumped out of the car, and surveying the wreckage, they looked up to see their sons on the rooftop above. The looks on their faces were a combination of sheer terror and relief.

Needless to say, we were both immediately grounded. It wasn’t until a couple of days later that David and I could regroup and discuss the events of our test flight.

Disappointed we sat in the garage eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and evaluated our plane’s design to determine what went wrong. Why didn’t our plane fly?

“Maybe we should have made the wings larger or made the fuselage lighter.” I don’t remember who suggested it, but we both agreed that it probably just needed more speed. 

As we started envisioning our next design and contemplating how we could make the plane go faster, we scanned the garage for inspiration. 

An enormous grin erupted on our faces as we spied the large box of Freedom fireworks on the shelf my dad had purchased for the Fourth of July block party.

But that’s another story…

From The Bean Wars to Retirement by Mark Farenbaugh

 From The Bean Wars to Retirement

By 

Mark Farenbaugh

I grew up in Orange County, California, the third of eight children—three boys, two girls, and then three more boys. In a family that size, privacy was more a theoretical concept than an actual condition. We all remember it: the station wagon, hand-me-down clothes, and large family meals where prayers were said and no one was excused without permission. It was a wonderful childhood because I had terrific parents and siblings.

My father was mostly German (80%) and French (15%) by ancestry, with a little Blackfoot Indian ancestry and, I suspect, some Scandinavian blood mixed in somewhere, judging by the fact that he, my brothers, and I all developed Dupuytren’s contracture, sometimes nicknamed “Viking disease.” My mother was a fifth-generation Spaniard. Together, they managed the controlled chaos produced by eight children. I didn’t really recognize it at the time, but I’m quite sure I contributed my fair share.

Some of my best memories involve food. What we ate often depended on the family budget, but some meals became memorable for reasons my mother never intended.

Mom learned Mexican cooking from her friends and became quite good at tacos, enchiladas, and pinto beans. The beans were made properly, using the ham bone left over from a previous dinner. It took her several attempts to perfect the recipe, but eventually she did. Unfortunately, my brother Chris and I discovered that those tasty pinto beans had a secondary tactical application.

Thus began The Great Bean Wars of 1959.

Chris and I discovered that the gaseous aftereffects of beans could be captured in a container and preserved for later offensive operations. We would wait until an unsuspecting brother was sound asleep, quietly lift the sheet at the foot of his bed, open the container, and withdraw.

Pee-youuuu! Followed by lots of laughter!

Chemical warfare had arrived, and it continued for most of the summer. But when hostilities spread into adjacent territory—the sisters’ room—the King and Queen of the house finally intervened and banned all further toxic warfare.

We still tell the war stories.

The Viking blood.

Four brothers slept in one bedroom containing two sets of bunk beds. I had a top bunk conveniently located next to a small crank-opened window. I was an energetic kid, a very light sleeper, and eventually discovered that the window offered freedom……after everyone was asleep, I would quietly slip through it and wander around the neighborhood. Especially when there was fog. I never went very far and, amazingly, never got caught. To a boy sharing a room with three brothers, however, walking alone through the quiet nighttime streets felt like crossing into another world. There was probably something prophetic about those little escapes. Even then, I wanted to see what was beyond the window. Looking back in time, I blame it on the Viking blood.

At Servite High School, I made friendships that have lasted much of my life. I am blessed. But even then, I was already looking toward something farther away. I wanted to become an Air Force pilot. More importantly, perhaps, I wanted to get out of a very crowded house, finish college, see the world, and make a life of my own.

When an opportunity to enter construction came along after high school, I jumped at the chance to operate heavy equipment. It was a rough world that sent me all over San Diego County. I enjoyed being outdoors, but I especially liked always being on the move. I was rarely bored—except, perhaps, by the lack of good dialogue.

Once I could afford college, I began my university studies in civil engineering. But I needed to earn a degree more quickly to meet the Air Force entry schedule, so I turned instead to what had always been something of a hobby: Spanish. That decision would later prove far more important than I could have imagined. Spanish opened doors to military assignments throughout Latin America.

I joined the United States Air Force in 1981 with what I considered a perfectly sensible plan: see the world, serve twenty years, and move on. I stayed for twenty-three.

The Viking in me was happy indeed.

My career began in air defense and command and control—basically, everything involving radar and fighter aircraft. Assignments took me through Canada, Washington State, Florida, Germany, Colorado, Egypt, Israel, Hawaii, Nicaragua, Korea, Colombia, Arizona, Ecuador, and elsewhere. What began as a desire to see the world became a career in which the world itself became my workplace.

I had the privilege—and occasionally the headache—of working with military officers, diplomats, ambassadors, foreign governments, intelligence organizations, contractors, pilots, maintainers, and people from almost every imaginable background.

The travel was extraordinary. I had joined the Air Force to see the world.

Mission accomplished.

In December 2003, I retired from the Air Force. The rank mattered, of course, but what mattered more was what stood behind it: twenty-three years of experiences, mistakes, friendships, responsibilities, and opportunities I could never have imagined when I first climbed through that bedroom window in Orange County.

I consulted at U.S. Southern Command in Miami on counterdrug and counterinsurgency operations, security cooperation, and embassy-related programs. Later, I moved into defense contracting and program management, where much of my military experience proved surprisingly useful. I managed aviation operations in Colombia involving more than a hundred aircraft and hundreds of personnel. I installed voice communications systems and assessed maritime radar systems there as well.

Spanish, which had once seemed simply an interesting university subject, became one of the most valuable tools of my career.

Along the way, I married, scuba dived, ran marathons, attacked the game of golf with little success, sailed whenever I could, and eventually began writing about some of the unusual characters and experiences I encountered during a lifetime of moving around the world.

Today, I am comfortably retired, and I consider that an accomplishment too. There is something deeply satisfying about reaching the point where Monday morning no longer carries quite the authority it once did.

I started life as one of eight children in a crowded California house, conducting bean-gas warfare against my siblings and slipping through a bedroom window at night simply to experience a little freedom.

Then I saw the world.

Billy Bob Pruitt by Ricki T Thues

 Billy Bob Pruitt by Ricki T Thues

 

Billy Bob Pruitt was at his desk in the American Gun Distribution Company. It was a plain, undecorated cubicle in a room drowning in telephone sales calls. He was dressed in the unofficial uniform of the company: blue jeans, flannel shirt, and cowboy boots. His belt was loose, and his shirt was tight. He was sweating ‘cause the gad dang office was never cool enough. Cheap son of a bitch of a boss. CP Performance’s website was on Billy Bob’s computer.

“That’s a dang pretty chrome exhaust kit.” He gave a long, loud whistle in his head.

He was about to check out the price when there was a slap on the back of his head.

 

“What the…” Billy Bob started to say as he whirled on his boss, standing behind him with his arms crossed.

“CP gonna start sellin’ guns?” asked Ottis Plunkett.

“Ah, ya never know, boss.”

“Don’t give me that crap. You’re buy’n something for that souped-up speedboat of yours. If you weren’t my brother-in-law, I’d fire your ass right now.”

“It’s almost quit’n time,” looking at the clock, “give me a break.”

“I’ll give you a break, right on that dim head of yours. You can’t afford that boat anyway.” Ottis read the clock: 5:01. “Get out of here.”

 

Billy Bob shut down the computer and bolted for the door. He took the stairs to the parking garage by twos. Getting out of the office never came too soon. He climbed into his custom lifted  F-450 truck and burned rubber on the slick concrete garage floors. The truck fishtailed onto the street, and Billy Bob was free.

 

On the freeway, traffic was heavy with after-work rush hour, but it did not slow Billy Bob down. He tailgated one car after the other until a too-small space opened up. He wove across all three lanes, both American flags flying in the wind. “Get outta my way,” he yelled at old ladies, young drivers, and average commuters. If they didn’t pull over for him then, well, they were just idiots.

 

It was a miracle that no policeman saw him, no fenders were scraped, and no one died. Billy Bob’s driving was not expert. It was just lucky.

 

When exiting the freeway, a ten-year-old on a bicycle rolled off the road into a ditch to avoid the truck running the stop sign. “Stupid kid,” he said, shaking his head.

 

As he pulled up to his house, he saw his kids’ bikes and toys in the driveway, so he parked on the street. He looked at his watch and said, “Saved eight minutes today!”

 

He kicked kid debris off the walkway as he marched up to the front door.

 

When Billy Bob opened the door, his two kids, 10 and 12, were right there yelling at him.

 

Brandy Lynn screamed at the top of her lungs, “Hunter hit me, daddy!”

“She hit me first,” was Hunter’s wide-mouthed answer.

 

“Both of you go outside and pick up your stuff from the driveway. I can’t park with all that mess.”

The children shook their heads, stomped their feet, and dragged their feet out the door.

 

Tammy Jo was standing in the hall, her mouth a thin line. “How was work?”

“Oh, that mistake of a brother of yours was in a bad mood. He’s always holding you over me at work. Just because your father owns the company.”

“What did you do this time, Billy Bob?”

“Noth’n. I was just looking at parts for Overdraft.”

“That’s about the best name you could’ve given that boat of yours, ‘cause our checkbook is overdrafted to hell.”

“It’s all about aerodynamics. When you’re flying down the lake at eighty miles per hour, you gotta get over that wind draft. See… Overdraft, it’s science.”

Tammy Jo just shook her head. “We gotta figure out how to pay for Brandy Lynn’s teeth and Hunter’s karate lessons. Not to mention the food and the mortgage. You need to back off on the Overdraft’n.”

 

Billy Bob pushed past his wife to the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and stomped into the den. He sat at the computer, switched from the Fox News page to CP Performance’s website to check the price on that chrome exhaust kit. “OO-we that’s pretty.”

 

It never occurred to him that he could have lost his job, could have been in an accident, or might have killed the kid on the bicycle. Instead, Billy Bob wondered why he bothered to save eight minutes on the drive home.

UPS Guy by Ricki T Thues

 UPS guy - by Ricki T Thues

 

The UPS drivers are my friends. Every one of them is an interesting story.

 

My house is at the end of a thousand-foot dirt driveway. And I understand why delivery drivers might find it foreboding, especially at night. The driveway is long, it's dirt, and from the street you can't see the house. For all they know, there's a guy at the end of it with a shotgun and a chainsaw.

 

There isn't.

 

Usually.

 

The common carriers and FedEx are often intimidated. I'll come home and find a package at the entrance to the driveway, sitting in the dirt at the side of the road.

 

So I call customer service.

My irritation falls on the sounding board of policy.

“If the route looks dangerous, the driver will not proceed.”

“If the driver doesn't know if he can turn around, he will leave the package at the street.”

I understand. It's a thousand-foot dirt driveway. Anything could happen.

 

With FedEx, I can add a note to my account.

“Please drive up the driveway. It is safe. You can turn around in the paddock. There are no dangerous animals. There is no ambush. The guy with the shotgun is usually inside.”

 

Sometimes the driver reads the note. Sometimes the package is still on the street.

 

My UPS drivers are fearless.

Years ago, my new driver drove boldly up the driveway and stopped right in front of the house. I heard him get out. I heard him haul the packages around to the front door. Not having met him yet, I jumped out of my office chair, ran to the front door, and swung it open.

 

Nobody was there.

I ran around to the front of the house just in time to see the driver backing quickly down the driveway. He backed around the corner. Then he kept backing, dust flying up in front of the delivery truck. I stood there watching him disappear down the thousand-foot driveway. He reappeared at the street, swung around, and two-pointed it onto the road.

 

I thought, this guy is good.

 

The next time he delivered to my house, I intercepted him in the driveway.

“Hi, I’m Ricki.”

“Nice to meet you, Ricki.” 

“You sure are a skilled driver. I saw you back out of the driveway last time. You are fearless.”

“I've been driving a long time, Ricki. It just comes with the job. To tell the truth, this job just pays the bills; I really want to be a rodeo bulldogger.”

“That’s amazing. You really are fearless. Let me make this a little easier for you. You can use the paddock to turn around. Drive right on in. No horses in there.”

“Thanks.” He looked at his watch. “Gotta go.”

 

Phillip jumped into the big box of his UPS truck and drove into the paddock. He threw up dust, doing something between a brodie and a spinning bull ride. He dashed out of the paddock, swung onto the driveway, and gave me a rodeo wave, a hoot, and a holler.

 

I watched him disappear down the road.

I thought, I like this guy.

 

Uh-Oh by Mike Freeman

Uh-Oh

By Mike Freeman

Our family vacations are simple. Two weeks of camping, one week in Sequoia National Park, the other week at Yosemite National Park. My brother, Tim, and I sleep in our father's army pup tent. My parents and four sisters sleep together in a larger tent that you can stand up in.

One of our family camping goals is to come back with the same number of children that we left with. My parents would occasionally opine that losing one or two children along the way would not be catastrophic.

Camping vacations teach us how to set up and take down various types of tents, create campfires, read a map, and survive Arctic camping conditions. Our dad loves camping at high mountain altitudes over 5,000 feet, where lakes have near-freezing water temperatures and brilliant star-lit nights. Sometimes we leave a pail of water outside our tents before going to sleep and wake up the next morning to discover a bucket of solid ice. We are constantly attempting to develop ways to keep bears from invading the family ice chest for food.

We all have our favorite parts of the trip. It could be seeing the more than 2,300-year-old sequoia tree named General Sherman that stands 275 feet tall, driving our car through tunnels bored into fallen or still standing giant sequoia trees, or making friends with other campers. My favorite is the Yosemite Fire Falls, where park rangers dump a huge bonfire off Glacier Point at night, creating a waterfall of sparks, embers, and flames bouncing down the cliff.

This upcoming family camping vacation is different. It is 1969, and we are going to take our two family cars, not one. One is a green 1959 Rambler station wagon with large fins on the back. The other is a white 1965 Volkswagen Bug that cost my father approximately $1,600 new.

I am driving the heavily loaded Volkswagen Bug with my brother. My father is driving my mother and sisters in the Rambler station wagon that carries a similar burden of camping items. Packing becomes more of a challenge each year as the six children continue to grow in size, need, and appetite.

The Volkswagen Bug is a welcome addition to our family. One-car families are common in my neighborhood. Getting a second car is almost as exciting as buying a color TV. Both luxury items are celebrated when purchased. Having a second family color TV is beyond our comprehension or experience.

There is a time when all eight of our family members fit into the Volkswagen Bug. Dad drives; Mom sits in the front passenger seat with the youngest, Karol, in her lap. Four of us sit across the back seat. One of the younger sisters climbs into the small space between the back seat and rear window. Seatbelt regulations are still in the future. We often go to Mass this way on Sunday mornings. People laugh at us as we arrive in the church parking lot. We look like a circus clown car unloading a horde of humans going into Mass.

This is the first camping trip on which I can legally drive a car. I am very excited about this 230-mile opportunity. I have mixed feelings about spending five to six driving hours with my brother. I'm sure the feeling is mutual. We are leaving before dawn. Hopefully, he will sleep part of the way and I can listen to the AM radio in peace.

We depart in the early-morning darkness. My father leads the way driving the Rambler. Both cars are underpowered. The Volkswagen has a top speed of 72 mph. I can make the car more aerodynamic by turning in the front window wing vents and gaining a few more miles per hour. We head north on I-5. Tim is sleeping, the radio playing, I am driving, and all is good in the world.

We drive through a very busy freeway interchange in Los Angeles. At the last minute, my dad suddenly lurches to the left, changing lanes and switching freeways. I try to follow him, but cannot do so safely. Our swerving car wakes Tim up.

An "Uh-oh!" escapes from my mouth. A look of surprise and confusion appears on Tim's face. We watch our dad drive our family away from us on a different freeway. As our separation increases, I realize we have no plan for this situation. Worse, we have no way to communicate with each other. Like seatbelts, cell phones are in the future. Such wondrous technology only exists in Dick Tracy Sunday comics in the 1960s.

What are we going to do? How do Tim and I reunite with our family for the camping trip?

I make a quick decision. Tim and I get off at the first off-ramp on our freeway. Early morning light is just starting to appear. I drop Tim off at a donut store on a cross street at the end of the off-ramp. He is less than enthusiastic about my plan.

I tell him that if Dad comes this way looking for us, he should stay at the donut store until I return. I am going to return to the freeway system and go the way our father went. I will get off the first off-ramp to see if he is waiting for us there. I tell Tim I will return to the donut store to pick him up either way.

Tim reluctantly gets out of the car. He has no money, and I do not think about giving him money for donuts. I want him starving and alert. I drive off to see if I can find my dad and family. I look up to memorize the off-ramp street name where I'm abandoning my brother. Once I have memorized it, I drive off and begin my early-morning search.

I get on the freeway route my father took and get off at the first available off-ramp. There is no sign of the Rambler or the family. I take a few surface streets to get back on the freeway and return to my brother. The way is complicated and I get lost.

I pull off the freeway and consult a map to find the street where I dropped off my brother. I find no street with that name anywhere on the map. The street name I thought I saw in the early morning light doesn't exist.

Another "Uh-oh!” escapes from my mouth. This one is filled with panic. What to do?

I admit there are times when I question my brother's usefulness and contribution to our family. Is he expendable? 

He is handy to have around when there is yard work to do. He is responsible for the front yard. I take care of the back. We also split the duty of taking out the trash cans every week.

He can be useful when it comes time to vote on which TV show we're going to watch on our one family TV. He tends to like the same shows that I do. We often vote together as one. My sisters do the same.

When my parents are in the room, deciding which show to watch is a very fair and democratic process. When they are not, tyranny reigns.

My brother and I are the eldest, so we are bigger, stronger, and smarter than my four sisters. The threat of an older brother farting in their faces typically quells any sister rebellion against our decision.

Next comes a more delicate negotiation. Who will get up from their chair, couch, or floor to manually set the TV to the appropriate channel? TV remotes that change channels are rare and reserved for the wealthy. My sisters are especially stubborn after losing the first decision and refuse to cooperate. If one of them cannot be coerced, I pull rank and have Tim do it.

I am blissfully living toward the end of the Golden Era of our family dynamics. As the eldest child, I am taller, stronger, smarter, and more experienced at everything in life than my younger brother or my sisters. I can beat my brother at any sport. I reign supreme over all of them.

I am not aware of the approaching Dark Ages when everyone grows up and things even out. Tim is a better athlete and can beat me at every sport. Sisters Mary Beth and Karen are the two school brainiacs of the family. Kathy is the most successful socially. Karol, the youngest, enjoys being spoiled and is the most easygoing. All four sisters are softball All-Stars. Fortunately, we all become friends as we emerge from the Dark Ages.

I refocus my thoughts on the unraveling disaster I am facing. I am lost in Los Angeles, my family is separating from me more and more each passing moment, and my abandoned brother is sitting at a donut shop on a street whose name I do not remember.

Another word escapes from my mouth. This time, it is not "Uh-oh." I get back on the freeway and attempt to retrace my route. Things are looking very different as the bright morning sun emerges. I start to panic.

Somehow, I end up on the freeway we were originally traveling north on. I look up and see a street exit sign. It's not the name I remember, but it does look somewhat familiar. I decide to take a chance and get off the freeway. I go down to the end of the off-ramp and there are the Rambler and my family in front of the donut shop. They are all very happy as I drive up. Is my arrival the reason, or are they finishing a donut feast?

We leave the donut shop united once again. The only difference is that now we have a clear plan should we ever be separated again. Tim spends the rest of the long drive telling me how great the donuts are and how many he ate. I did not know it then, but this is the beginning of the Dark Ages.

“Uh-oh!”