Uh, Dad - can't I just go without a hat? Apparently not, since father was determined that I have my own "straw" hat, just like his. Back in those days, I was the "little man" and enjoyed a somewhat peaceful life at home. It was the 1950's after all, and the economy was healthy and Gen. Eisenhower was in the White House, so most everybody was happy.
I couldn't have been more than just a few years removed from having a little sister, who would come via adoption when I turned ten and she was almost one. I actually had asked for a new suit coat, as you can see me wearing the same outfit in all these pictures, but apparently a sister seemed more important to my parents.
My sister was happy in those years, and I was just happy that she gave my mother a little girl to love. They had tried for another child for nine years, and as luck always seems to have it, my brother came along two years later. He then became the "little man" and by then I was eleven and starting to enter those difficult years when not a man, nor still a child. With each child, family dynamics change. Today with my sister gone, and my brother in another state, we have totally different relationships. Childhood is precious, and all too fleeting.
My sister would grow up in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and as the nation moved into the latter part of those turbulent times, she would experiment with her high school peers and find she was genetically inclined to substance abuse. It would ultimately end her life in her fifties from health issues. That would devastate my mother, who today at 90 still blames herself for not doing more to help. While we may be "our brothers keeper", we can not always save one from themselves. A happy and hopeful beginning for my sister, yet a tragic loss. If only they had bought me that suit instead of bringing me a sister but parents just never listen, do they?
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