Sibling rivarly, shipping and the rest of us...

[Susan McGee]

No: HPFGUIDX 8707

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:
> zsenya at y... wrote:
> 
> > I am from a middle-sized family - three girls.  I am pretty sure 
of
> > one reason why I love the Weasleys so much - all the boys! 
Jealousy! I
> > would have given ANYTHING to have older brothers growing up.
> 
> Damn, I wish I'd known you then...you could have had mine. Cheap.
> 
> > I had this image in my head that all older brothers would be 
Richie
> > Cunninghams
> 
> And that's exactly where the Richie Cunninghams live, in the 
imagination.
> Real older brothers sing "Amazing Grace" loudly in the back seat, 
windows
> down, while you're driving for the first time, make you walk on the 
other
> side of the street on the way home from school so no one will know 
you're
> with them, lie under your bed when you're little and reach up and 
grab
> you, so that you have a lifelong fear of underbed monsters even as a
> supposedly rational adult....shall I continue? I love them to 
death, but
> Richie Cunnigham they ain't.
> 
> --Amanda, getting all the mileage she can out of past traumas now 
that
> they feel guilty about it....


I guess lots of girls had that experience with their older brothers.
Mine protected me once or twice from the school bullies who after that
would not mess with me. He taught me chess, ping pong (and then got 
mad that I beat him at it), informed his friends that HIS younger
sister was better at chess than they were, taught me how to throw 
baseballs, showed me where he hid the  firecrackers from my parents, 
visited me at camp, bought me books and read to me when I was sick, 
continued to buy me books when he was in college and I was 12 
(including my first science fiction novels and the C.S. Lewis 
chronicles), taught me how to dribble, discussed birth control with 
me when he realized I was living with my boyfriend..... For 
Christmas, I sent him 50 pictures of he and I ask kids..he is holding 
my hand as we emerge from the haunted house,
he is riding shotgun on the stagecoach while I am inside at 
Freedomland, etc. etc. etc. He and I went rowing and fishing 
together, and spent many hours swimming....I'm hoping my kids will 
recreate that model..we'll see......