There I was six years old, playing in my sand box outside the back door, all by myself. I piled sand up into a nice sized hill and began to fashion it into what I imagined to be a magnificent castle. Like all castles facing siege, along came my slightly older brother, Eddy, performing the perfectly executed role of marauder. With one swift kick and merciless giggles, my sand castle was gone. I cried and screamed and yelled for mom who clearly told Eddy to stop bothering me.
Satisfied that he had been turned away, I began yet again to pile up sand into a nice sized hill to transform into my second sand castle of the day. Just when it started to take on a satisfying form, swiftly and without warning the army of one snuck out of nowhere and kicked my sand castle down again!
This time, his laughter together with my screaming and crying shook the house; mom came running to see what was the matter and once again scolded Eddy. She hauled him away with strict instructions to leave me alone. But I knew that look in his eye that he shot me over his shoulder. I knew that look said that I—the little sister, and my sand castles were not really safe no matter what mom did or said. Eddy had watched too many episodes of The Three Stooges and knew far too many ways to torture me. For now, this one was working much to his delight and I didn’t have much hope that he would actually leave me alone.
As I sat in the sand box pondering the problem the saying “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” crossed my mind. Clearly, if I believed that my sand castle would be safe a third time I was a complete idiot. As the queen of the castle protecting my turf, I knew I would need to be equally cunning as my attacker—if not more so.
That is when my eyes fell upon a loose cinder block in the yard. Eddy was not the only one who had watched The Three Stooges; my plan began to form. I looked around to see if he was watching; satisfied that he was not, I grabbed that brick and quickly put it in the sand box piling my sand all around it; quite contentedly crafting my castle around its hidden weapon.
Just like the wolf in the Three Little Piggies, (who had huffed and puffed and blown the first two houses, but was no match for the brick house) Eddy snuck out of nowhere to once again wreck havoc upon my castle and me. This time however, I put up little if any protest once I saw him coming. He descended upon me and with one huge satisfying kick he nearly broke his foot.
This time it was me who was laughing and Eddy who was crying and screaming for Mom! He was insistent that I had hurt him, but I smugly pointed out to the judge and jury that I hadn’t done anything but build a stronger castle—one that he had been forbidden not once, but twice to kick down!
***
Ed and I were typical brother and sister…while the above was one of my prouder moments of the one time in all of history that I had actually out-smarted him (and of course my favorite story), the truth is that most of my life Ed was my dear companion and teacher. I remember way, way back in the sixties when we played music on little 45 RPM records (remember those?) that Eddy and I were in the playroom listening to Crimson and Clover and dancing up on the couch like we were on American Bandstand. Ed looked over, assessed my dancing style and said, “That is pretty good, Evey, but you need to use your arms more,” and proceeded to throw his arms up in the air in time to music demonstrating how to do it. Impressed by my older brother’s ability, I carefully tried to imitate him. Now, I kid you not, every time I have found myself on a dance floor over the last forty years, including just recently, I will be contentedly dancing when I hear this sweet little voice say, “That is pretty good, Evey, but you need to use your arms more.” To the unsuspecting onlooker, it would appear that I suddenly had an energy surge or heard a louder version of the song that is playing because suddenly my arms will shoot up into the air in a much more pronounced way. That is when I am suddenly dancing with my brother.
***
And then there were the animals….Eddy was truly Mother Nature’s Son. He had every animal imaginable when we were growing up. Not because he wanted to trap them and cage them but quite simply because he loved them….and they seemed to love him too because they kept coming into his life by the droves, or flocks, or coveys… He would find animals that were hurt and nurse them back to health, he would find eggs and incubate and hatch them, he would buy them at the pet shop, he would find them in the oddest places trap them and bring them home.
He had Rocky and Beastie the raccoons—one of which Eddy saved all of his money up to buy and the other which he managed to trap with a Have-A-Heart Trap in a not to be named State Park, which dad let him take home only because it bit Eddy. He wanted to be sure to have the raccoon so he could watch for signs of rabies. Of course, I was his accomplice running around the area setting the traps and looking for signs of raccoons. He taught me how to identify their tracks and told me all about the habitats that they liked the most. Of course, there was the time when Rocky, our beloved pet coon, turned wild, escaped, broke into the house and attacked my dad’s foot causing him to get stitches and Rocky and Beastie both to be deported back into wild, but that was another story.
Ed had other animals, too: pet tarantulas, snakes, iguana, chameleons, camine (baby crocodiles), frogs, turtles, tortoise, ducks, chickens, fish, pheasants, quail, crows, owls, homing pigeons, a dog, cats, rats, mice, hampsters and roosters (MEAN roosters as I recall!). Our elementary school used to take field trips to our house because it was like going to a little zoo. The cool thing though was that Eddy knew how to take care of all these creatures. He knew how to care for them and how to feed them. As the little sister, it was often my job to assist him on food gathering missions. These were some of my favorite times with Eddy. Off we would go through the neighborhood looking for earthworms in the great big puddle that would form along the curb on the corner of Valley View and Grandview. We would pick Hibiscus for our iguana from the neighbor’s yard. They had big beautiful flowers that the iguanas loved to eat in exaggerated gulps.
Ed was equally loving and care-full when one of his beloved pets died. We had what had to be one of the most extensive pet cemeteries in all of Fullerton.
Does anyone remember the time that Eddy brought his tarantula to high school in a basket with a lid, waiting for unsuspecting girls to ask him what was in his basket? When they would ask what was inside, he would say, “Nothing.” Not believing he would carry a basket around all day with nothing in it they would grab at it, get it away from him (with only faked resistance from Ed) only to find when they opened the lid a huge hairy spider inside. Screams would follow, the basket would be dropped, the tarantula would be loose at school, and Eddy would scoop it up, return it to its basket and wait for the next unsuspecting girl who would ask him what was in it.
***
My other favorite of memories was going out stomping in wild weather. Eddy was an outdoor kind of guy from the very, very beginning. He loved a good storm so when it started raining, that was no reason to stay indoors! Off we would go to stomp and splash in puddles, or stand at the top of Grandview and hold on to our umbrellas in just the right position so that the wind would catch it just right. Eddy would instruct me on the perfect time, along with the perfect gust of wind, to let go and we would laugh joyfully as our umbrellas flew all by themselves all the way down the street. Off we would go in the wind and the rain running after them, only to haul them back up to the top of the hill to do it all again. It wasn’t exactly good for the umbrella, but it certainly was good for us!
***
Another favorite childhood memory was when all four of the Eschner kids, and undoubtedly a few of the neighbors too, would play “River.” As I recall, we would turn on a hose at the top of our property and build rivers that crisscrossed, intersected, raced and eventually merged in the bathtub sized lake we made at the bottom of the property. Hours and hours of play (and untold volumes of water) filled many a day as we floated army men, boats, leaves or whatever we could find down the rivers we had made.
Oh and the wheel barrow rides! Dad would haul Eddy and me all over the back yard. This was the best!***
While Eddy could certainly be a prankster, and often a little sister’s worst nightmare, he was also my best friend when we were growing up. I even remember sharing dreams with him. Our bedrooms were right next to each other’s and we would go to bed, I would dream of flying with Eddy. We were usually on the field at Golden Hill School and we would run and then, suddenly we could take off and fly all over the place together! In the morning I would tell him that I had a flying dream with him and he would always assure me that he knew, that he had been there too. I am not sure at what age I finally decided that our flights had to be dreams, but prior to that age of grown-up practicality, I KNEW Eddy and I could really fly.
•••
Always, always, always, Eddy’s life was about nature, the wild, being outdoors, protecting the earth, teaching others about its wonderful and varied creatures, loving deeply and passionately—and being a bit of trickster too. He was like Wiley Coyote meets Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version) meets Dumbledore, meets Native American Shaman. Okay, okay, meets Mo, Curly and whatever the third stooge was named, meets Doctor Doolittle and The Little Rascals.
He was magical, he was my brother and I was blessed.
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