HATE!

She was the object of my concentrated hate. I didn't like her. From the beginning she got special privileges.  Like when she rode home with my mother in that big long white car. I think people called it an ambulance. My mother did not play with me as much as she once did. Now she gave much of her attention to the little baby girl. I did not like her. And then there were the visitors. Once they wanted to see me as soon as they arrived. But now they hardly noticed. They would “u-u-h”and “a-a-h” and say “What a pretty baby!”  I did not think she was pretty at all: bald head, toothless smile, stubby arms and legs. Not pretty at all!  One Sunday there were some grownups at the house to see “the baby”. I was in the backyard trying to entertain myself. After all no one was paying me any attention. I was going to build a toy locomotive. They were big and powerful with steam and smoke. I loved them! I had found a small block of wood and a small red wooden ball with a hole in it. With my hammer I was nailing the red ball to the block of wood. (The red ball was to be the smokestack on my locomotive.) My construction adventure was interrupted by my father who said I had to be punished for using a hammer on Sunday.  The family was staunch Southern Baptists. We took that long walk to that area behind the woodshed where I bared my posterior to my father’s belt. It was a bad Sunday but the punishment that day paled in comparison to what was to come.

My dislike for my baby sister continued to increase exponentially. One day my mother allowed me to push the carriage with my baby sister in it. I was quite casual in my undertaking this task. At one point my mother relaxed her supervision and watchful eye. Clever lad that I was I took that opportunity to dump the baby from the carriage onto the ground. My mother screamed and quickly retrieved the undamaged baby. My father heard the scream and quickly apprehended his escaping four-year-old son.  The escapee was me. Once again we took that long walk to the woodshed.

Eventually I realized that I was stuck with a sister and we would become friends.