Ben-Jammin'

Okay, I do have other stories to tell, but I have been promising a post about my older brother Ben for a long time. So, I will just accumulate the stories (since most of them are "remember whens" anyway) and save them for a "rainy" day of no interesting stories.

Ben is the oldest of us four siblings. He was 9 years old when I came along, so that was quite the gap. Which is why I do not have the amount of memories shared with him as I do of Brad and me or Christina and me. By the time I was 10 or 11 and remembering stuff really well, Ben was moving to WA to go to college. But here are some stories I do remember :).Back in 1989 (December of 1989 to be more precise :)), Noriega, the Panamanian dictator, had risen to power full-force in Panama. With vested interest in Panama at the time (namely their control of the Panama Canal), the U.S. sent in troops to oust Noriega. Although this was technically not a war (it was called an operation), for all intents and purposes, it was like a war to a bunch of kids. Many people did die, including some teenagers who were out partying and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the elementary school teachers lost her husband and her son in this. And to see some of the buildings afterwards in some areas (including Ft.. Amador)... they were riddled with bullet holes. Things got so bad that toward the end of it all, right in the middle of Christmas-time, the warning level was at PML-Echo, and we were not even supposed to leave our homes. Not even in my safe little neighborhood of Cardenas, which was nestled snuggly between an Army base and an Air Force base. Now, one of the great thing about Cardenas was that it had a back road into Ft. Clayton (the Army base). Yes, there was a gate up, so no cars could go through. But there was a trail around the gate that allowed walking traffic and bicycles to go through. As kids, we took advantage of this many times. And there were no guards on the other side of this gate (Elka and Mrs. S may remember us all walking onto Ft. Clayton this way when they were down for a visit in 1996). So, pretty much any Tom, Dick, or Harry could walk right onto the Army base without having to show identification, even if they weren't allowed to be there. Now, my dad was a civilian working for the U.S. Government, so we were allowed to be there and we had the proper ID, should anyone have stopped us to ask. That's just FYI :). (Of course, Elka and Mrs. S did not have the proper ID, since they didn't actually live in Panama and were just visiting. Good thing nobody stopped us then!). It occurs to me at this point that I have not even begun to tell you how Ben fits into all of this. I know, I know... I get way off topic. But I'm trying to help you get the whole picture! Okay, so back to December 1989. Well, this little access road I've just described was not a huge secret. So one night, right in the middle of this "Operation Just Cause," it's around dinner time and my parents are watching the news (which is now on almost non-stop). Suddenly we hear tanks coming down the road into our little neighborhood. My parents freaked out. They ran us all up the stairs and went back downstairs themselves to see what was going on. It was dark outside, so the four of us sat in one of the bedrooms with the big ceiling light on. Ben was charged with entertaining us. Eventually, my dad had us move into the hallway and close all the bedroom doors and turn off all the big lights in the bedrooms so that we did not attract the attention of any helicopters flying over. Anyway, Ben entertained us quite well. He was very good at drawing. And so he drew up these little "paper dolls," if you will. They were a little family of four: a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. However, this had to have been the dopiest family ever! The father was a huge fat guy sitting in a recliner with a bag of potato chips at his feet, the mom was on a stool that was about to fall over, screaming because there was a mouse at the foot of the stool (and I believe the mouse might have been taunting her by sticking its tongue out at her), the daughter was walking along, listening to her walkman, but she had her eyes closed and wasn't watching where she was going, so she was about to trip over a rock. And the son... The son was a moron. He was holding a lit bomb (one of those little black round bombs you always see depicted in cartoons) and he was totally cool about it. However, the Daffy-Duck looking character on his t-shirt was not so calm about it. The t-shirt duck had his eyes bugging out of his head and was grabbing his neck like, "Oh my gosh! I'm gonna die!" I must applaud Ben's attention to detail. He really did a great job that night of entertaining us (and calming me down) in a scary situation. I was a high-strung kid. Perhaps I am still slightly high-strung. When my parents freaked out, I lost it and started crying hysterically. Oh, the reason the tanks came into Cardenas that night is because snipers were trying to get onto Ft. Clayton by using that little access road about which I told you. See? I can make it all come together... :). It only seems like incessant rambling at first. But that is one of the greatest memories I have of Ben and how he was a great "big brother."This memory just displays our childish craziness... Okay, Ben, of course, was much older than the rest of us. So, while we were supposed to go to bed early, he was allowed to stay up later. Well, most nights he would still be up even after my parents went to bed. We could always see the glow of the kitchen light from upstairs, so we would know he was in the kitchen. So, being the nosy children that we were (and that I probably still am..., just not the child part :)), we had to "spy" on him. I don't know what we thought we were spying on, but I think it was just the adventure of it all. So, we would sneak downstairs (this one day led to the memory of the 'fart step', but that is a tale for another time) and crawl quietly on the floor until we could see into the kitchen. We thought we were truly sneaky, but we had to get pretty far into view of Ben in order to see him. So he always "caught" us (likely we were always giggling too) and sent us back upstairs. And all he was ever doing was sitting at the kitchen table, eating cereal, and reading a book. Like I said, I'm not entirely sure why we were "spying" on him. He wasn't even doing anything interesting. I think it was just the prospect of trying to get away with something...And although these are not a part of my memory, I recently watched them on the family videos, and so I must share. Several things were brought to my realization as I watched the videos from an adult perspective. #1: Ben was a good kid. He was responsible. And he was good with us kids. He was always very gentle with and attentive of Christina. She was 1 and a half when he was 15, and he was often left in charge of her. He never seemed to mind. He'd help her put on shorts that were made for a 15 year old boy so that she could be filmed walking around in them. He chased after her when she tried to escape and my mom was busy filming. #2: Ben had an appreciation for life. He would not let Brad smoosh the ants, just because Brad wanted to smoosh them with the big round cement block. This was much to Brad's chagrin and frustration (because Ben was much bigger and much stronger, and so Brad couldn't pull the cement block from under Ben when Ben was sitting on it). Hilarious to watch on video. #3: Ben had a twisted older-brother mean-streak in him. And I have proof that I got the brunt of it at least once. Of course, this was probably because I was being a brat. Story: So, it's summer vacation (possibly 1987, don't remember) and we kids are playing in the pools in the back yard and my mom is filming on the Betamax recorder so that we can send these videos to our grandparents who were stateside. So my mom pulled Ben away from his new Atari computer system (yeah, can you tell how long ago this story was??) and forced him to come outside so he could be in the films. He was hanging out on the patio, though, because I was in charge of the hose and I was just dying to wet him. Which he did not want to have done. And he knew that I wouldn't spray him on the patio because my mom had the Betamax up there and that would spell certain doom (delivered by Dad) if any of us were to have wet the thing. So my mom says, "Ben, go get in the picture!" And Ben says, "No! She's gonna wet me!" And so my mom says, "Hila, don't wet him." At which point I start whining saying, "But I want to!" (Okay for the full affect, it really is better to see this... I really was a brat!). So, Ben solves the problem. He kinks the hose way up and stops up the water. This, of course, does not sit well with me, so I start whining again. But eventually I get distracted by something else, so I stop whining. Ben does go out and get filmed and I at one point am staring intently into the hose, where water should be coming out, but isn't, thanks to Ben. So, Ben watches as I put the hose close to my eye and look inside. And then he lets go of the kink. And, yeah, you're all laughing. The water shoots out of the hose with amazing force and blasts me in the eye. Well, my mom also has a slight twisted streak too (this is the woman who thought it was hilarious to put peanut butter on the roofs of our cats' mouths and watch them try to lick it off; or who would put rolled-up tape on their paws and watch them try to shake it off), so after this happened, she was chuckling (which I probably didn't hear at the time, but the video camera tells all) and Ben was really cracking up. So, after my mom finally stops laughing, she says, "Are you okay Hila?" Now, up to this point, I had been in shock that it had all happened. But right when my mom asks if I'm okay, I start wailing, "My eye!" Man, I'm laughing now. Yes, yes, we can watch this at the family reunion if you guys want a great laugh at my expense.So, there are some Ben memories in a nutshell. And some pictures to boot.

Oh, and just because this happened while I was in class last night and it was funny: Okay, so my Thursday night class is online. Sometimes we have to talk (so we have to have a headphones/microphone combo). So this one girl is representing our group while she talks about whatever we discussed in our little groups. She just kept going on and on and on. So April and I do a private chat while we're in class (let's just pray they are as private as they are supposed to be :)) and she and I are saying to each other, "Okay, she can stop now! We didn't even talk about that in our group!" Well, then this chat comes out over the whole classroom from someone else in our group who says, "Blah... She just needs to stop." Oh my gosh! I started laughing so hard! Because you know she didn't intend for the girl who was talking to SEE that! Obviously she was trying to do a private chat also, but accidentally sent the comment to the whole classroom. Ooops! Then she goes puts in another chat, "Oops, sorry! That was about someone else." Then she goes, "We were talking about Hilary Clinton." Okay, yeah. Likely story. Man, April and I had a field day with that one (only we made sure we were having our field day in the private chat). Ah, the wonders of technology :).

PS. That picture of me and Ben when we're adults was taken in 2005. I was much fatter then. Also, I think I need to get some new pajamas. Either that or stop wearing them in pictures :).