I had a nice day yesterday. My girlfriend Marilyn came over for coffee and we talked for quite awhile. I don't get to see her too often anymore as she is busy working her part-time job or volunteering or with Larry so it is always nice to see her. I also called my friend Charle in Florida and we had a nice conversation.

Today I hope to work on a quilt or at least work on some more organization of the sewing room. I would like to make some potholders as mine are getting ugly, time for new ones. I also want to work on the cosmetic bags that I have started. I finally got the fusible fleece that I needed to work on that project the other day when I was out so now I can maybe complete that project. If I like it I will possibly make myself a purse like that. It is a good way to use up scraps and I am always looking for projects so that I can get rid of things.

Now for some more about growing up. I remember a few thing about my brother Chuck. He seemed to be in trouble a lot. He always got into stuff he shouldn't get in too but all of it was not bad. We had a park within a couple of blocks from our house. The park was downhill for one block. My Mom would tell me to go to the park and get my brother for supper. Now remember Chuck was 8 years older than me so he was always much bigger than I was. My first two wheeler was a bike that was small and the pedals went around all the time. You couldn't coast with the bike, you just had to keep on pedaling. If I was to find Chuck it would down by the park and he would be in the bushes where all the smoke was coming out of. He used to sneak cigarette smoking with his buddies in the bushes and they were stupid enough to think that no one could see them and maybe they couldn't but the bush sure looked as if it was on fire. LOL Chuck would hop on the back of my bike and tell me to ride him home. I would struggle to ride him up the hill with him on the back but he was my big brother and I loved him to pieces so I would finally get him to level ground. I also remember another time when I finally got a real two wheeler, he gave me my last ride on the bar of his bike. He was taking me around the block and I got my foot caught in the spokes of his bike and sprained my ankle. Fortunately a motorcylist was going down the street and noticed what happened and he carried me half a block to the house. I never got another ride on my brother's bike. I remember chasing my brother all the time. I wanted to be with him and I loved his friends. One time he played tie up with me. We took turns of getting tied up in a chair and seeing if you could get loose. He would let me tie him up first and naturally he would get out easy and then he would tie me up and I couldn't get loose and he would take off and leave me there for awhile and go out with his buddies and come back later. Stupid me. His buddy in those days was a neighbor named Jack Mackinsey. His Mom made the best spagetti. It was canned spagetti and I loved it. My mother was fit to be tied that I loved canned spagetti when she always made everything from scratch.

When Chuck got a little older he would have to baby sit me. Mom and Dad in those days went dancing a lot or out for pizza in the city with friends. Chuck would have his buddies over to play cards while he was baby sitting for me. He would let me stay up for awhile but when I became pesty he would make me go to bed. Chuck had one friend that I was in love with for years. His name was George Hart. I wonder what ever became of George. I used to sit behind him all the time and watch him play cards. Poor guy with his buddies sister pestering him all the time.

Chuck on time was making potatoes across the street in the field. He would dig a hole and put the potatoes in and start a fire. The field was dry and it caught the whole field on fire. The field was quite large and a lot of it burned and the fire department had to come out. The police came to the door looking for my brother. I thought they were going to throw him in jail and I remember really crying because I thought they were going to take my brother away.

Another episode is when Chuck was older and hiding in the weeds and throwing tomatoes at passing cars. Like I said before he was always looking for trouble. Anyway he threw a tomato or one of his buddies did and hit the chief of police's car with his wife in it. The police chief took his wife home and came back and found the kids in the field. He hauled them all to the police station to scare the heck out of them.

Chuck and I were always close. I sure do miss him. He died way too young and it was a shock to all of us. More later.