I grew up in a very ruly family.
My father was a curable optimist, always ready to parage whatever we kids did. I remember once, when I was making a simple kite, Dad stood over me, muttering couragingly. You can imagine how nerved I was to have my own Dad, a man of paralleled genius, standing over me, and how pleased I was when, finally aloft, my little kite integrated in mid-air.
My mother was a woman of effable charm, and a fount of energy. For someone who didn’t actively exercise, she was remarkably ert. Always upbeat, she was one of the most gruntled people I’ve ever known.
With Mom in charge of the family pocketbook, our finances were in total array. She blithely sipated the funds in her charge; her checkbook entries were filled with crepancies. So concerned was she about her bookkeeping that, once, when a check actually bounced, she became controllably traught and walked out of the house completely robed.
Mom was a fine cook, remarkably ept in the kitchen, though there were times when she seemed to get things backwards. One day, I came home from school, to find her emboweling and membering a chicken. I advertently let my jaw drop, and we did have a bit of a tiff. I admit I uttered a few printable epithets, which prompted her, once again, to walk out of the house and, as before, in her mentionables.
My sister and brother were part of this combobulated family picture. My sister was a bundle of bridled curiosity, whose diagnosis as lexic, at the age of seven, helped explain why, in school, she was so easily tracted. At home, she loved my mother’s cooking, but had a satiable appetite, which helped explain her perpetually gainly appearance.
My sister’s lexia diagnosis served to completely hinge my brother, previously a bit of a troublemaker. He became utterly controllable, his hair sheveled, his clothing kempt, all of which greatly concerted our parents.
Finally, a little about myself. As a youth, I stoically overcame surmountable obstacles and superable odds. But I had my other side, too. At a party, give me a single glass of tilled water, and I became ruptive, if not outright solute. Walking home from one such do, I was stopped by the police, who were suspicious that I was moving so deliberately, as if hiding something. Anyway, there was a bit of a turbance in which I somehow located my shoulder. It all ended with the police giving me a citation for orderly conduct.
In all, we were a normal American family, venturing with flinching resolution into totally charted waters.