Turns out I have more than one thought per day :)

Lots of days I think of the times I had with my big brother when we were growing up. He was a great big brother most of the time, but sometimes he just plain tortured me.

I must have been 4 or 5 when he decided that he was tired of me being up his butt all the time. He is 3 years older than me, so at the time we didn't have a heck of a lot in common. I just liked being around him. He was awesome. But I think he hated me. LOL ;)

One day he found a very large and long stick and a bandanna, and proceeded to make a hobo-like contraption, using the bandanna, tied to the stick, to make somewhat of a pouch to hold his favorite toy, a GI JOE, a peanut butter sandwich, and a few other things (whatever he had that would fit in the home-made pouch); and he announced to me and my mother that he was running away. When asked why, he just said with a tired voice that he was sick of me following him everywhere he went. Of course I was hysterical. Even more hysterical that my mother seemed unfazed.

I begged him not to go. I promised I would leave him alone if he stayed. He would not change his mind. I cried. I begged some more. I cried some more. He just kept walking, farther and farther away from the house, toward the 2 acres of wooded area behind what we called home. He knew those woods like the back of his hand; we both did. I wondered if I would ever be able to find him. I wondered if he would live in the fort that we had made, except that he wasn't walking toward the fort, he was walking the other way. I cried louder as I watched from the window. My mother just shook her head and let him walk.

He didn't even look back. I couldn't see him from the window anymore. I just knew he was gone forever.

He made it all the way to the beginning of the woods. I cried to my mother (who was doing dishes at the window), "Aren't you going to stop him?" I had a habit of crying until I puked and she knew that. She dropped her dish cloth and yelled out the window, "Bart, get your butt back here RIGHT NOW."

He was mad for days, but he came back. And I was happy.

And even today, if you stand at that same window and look out, you can see where Bart eventually came to build his own house. He lives there now, with his sweet wife and his children. Mom still keeps an eye on him.

She tells me that she knew all along that he was never gonna run away. And he never did. :)