Right now, I would like to dispel the myth that it's a good thing to grow up with a brother or sister because you learn how to share as a child. Whoever says this has never had to deal with my brother Loyd.
There was a lot of stuff that I did not get to learn during my early years. My parents never taught me table manners or to say "please" or "thank you." It seemed like my parents decided to teach my brother and me these very important lessons at the same time. I used to think that it would have made more sense to teach me these things first so that I could set a good example for Loyd. At the time, it seemed bewildering that we were getting subjected to these new rules without any actual cause. Prior to writing this blog, I figured out that Mom and Dad really had their hands full with Loyd in dealing with his constant crying and screaming that they just didn't think about teaching me this stuff first. They say that once Loyd learned how to talk, he stopped crying and screaming. I guess when that happened, they finally had some room to teach us some important things about life.
I do want to mention the day that my mom decided we had to learn how to ask for permission to be excused from the table. There were a lot of words I didn't know at the time and "excuse" was one of them. At dinner, out of the blue, she said we needed to ask, "May I please be excused" before leaving the table. On a later date, she served all food I couldn't stand to eat. I immediately said, "May I please be excused?" Boy, she got mad.
As for sharing, apparently, my brother didn't like doing it. Loyd seemed to use these main rules for sharing:
1. Take all you want until someone tells you to stop.
2. If no one sees you eating it or playing with it, you don't have to share it.
3. When you're in a situation in which you have to share, try to delay releasing the item or items as long as possible. Maybe everyone else will forget you were supposed to share.
4. Don't wait for someone to offer to share something with you. Put them on the spot and ask them if you can have some.
This is something I don't really remember, but I had been reminded of it by my mother. It must have happened when I was five years old. Even though my first real memory was around the Christmas season that year, I do not recall this incident. My mother and father had these friends they knew through teaching. They treated us like family. For Christmas, they gave Loyd and me two presents. They apparently tried to communicate that these gifts were for both of us and we were supposed to share them. However, they were unaware that neither one of us knew the meaning of the word "share." Loyd opened his package. It was a transistor radio. I opened mine. It was a book of Bible stories. I was told I appeared very disappointed. Again, they tried to stress that both gifts were for both of us and we were to share them. Lloyd was two at the time and the words were not getting through to him. He never let go of that radio and took it everywhere with him.
A few years later, we came across that radio again when we were moving from the country to Artesia. My father said we had gotten it years ago, but didn't tell the full story of who gave it to us. I didn't remember the incident at the time and wasn't told about it until I was in my 30's.
In a separate incident, my mother decided to split a Butterfinger bar between us. If you've ever had any experience with Butterfinger bars, you know that they are not like Hershey bars, which can be broken off into segments. Butterfingers will never break exactly in half, and any attempts to break them that way just result in a lot of little pieces flying all over the place. Add that you can almost never find a Butterfinger in a wrapper that isn't already broken and you have the most unsharable candy in the universe.
Well, my mother broke the Butterfinger and tried very hard to make sure that Loyd and I had exactly the same amount. She didn't pull out a scale or anything, but she separated all the various bits into two piles and put them in front of us at the dining room table. We started eating them. Among the little pieces on my side was this big chunk. Keep in mind that my unshattered part of the bar was shorter than his and this helped to make up for it. I was saving that big chunk for last after I finished eating all the little pieces. Well, Loyd decided that all his shattered pieces were too small and actually reached across the table to try to grab that big chunk. I was able to keep him from getting it. I always wonder why we only had one Butterfinger to share. Getting us separate candy bars would have saved us a lot of trouble.
I have another amusing story regarding sharing with my brother that I posted on my A Liberal Christian YouTube channel. Here is the link: "A Liberal Christian vs. Colonel Sanders."
Now, this whole battle over sharing had a lingering affect on me. I did not "learn" to share. What I learned was that sharing is not an option. I was required to share. When I started going to college and entering my adult life, I was very selfish. If I had a bag of candy, I wouldn't offer any to anyone who happened to be around. If I went to a restaurant, I would not leave a tip. I didn't start leaving tips until I was 25 years old. Fortunately, none of the wait staff that served me ever hassled me about it.
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