GROWING UP WITH PETER AS MY BIG BROTHER
One of the great things about having Peter as my big brother was that he had already done those scary things that I was about to experience. For example, he had been going to school a couple of years before it was time for me to begin kindergarten, so I had someone to walk to school with. Walking to Linthicum Elementary involved crossing the B&A RR tracks which were recessed between two earthen banks at the east end of Cleveland Rd. It was Peter’s responsibility to make sure no trains were coming, all I had to do was try not to slip when the banks were muddy.
Peter was always there as a playmate as well as a problem solver, even to the point of probably saving my life. One summer day were were riding our tricycles in the back yard. I was trying to park mine at the edge of the fish pond. While backing up to the concrete edge of the pond, I went just a bit too far back and the rear wheels dropped into the water with me following after them. Peter went running into the house screaming “Larry fell in the fish pond”. Adult to the rescue. I was fished out of the water with no damage, but a lasting memory of the event.
We shared a double bed in the rear bedroom at 414 Hawthorne Rd. This of course meant playing when we were supposed to be taking a nap and after bedtime at night. Usually we were very quiet while doing this, but sometimes things got out of control. Once while we were roughhousing Peter accidentally hit me on the head and I passed out. Peter screamed for help, thinking that he had killed me. Another time we were carrying on and talking when we were supposed to be asleep. Daddy, who was working in his studio in the attic, heard us. He came down to our bedroom and told us to be quitiet and go to sleep. A short time later we were once again talking. This time Daddy arrived with a yardstick in hand. In our house there was only warning given before corrective action was taken. Now it was the yardstick applied to two side-by-side rear ends at the same time.
During WWII there was no gasoline available for travel, but before the war we did take some trips. On September 28, 1938 we visited Mount Vernon. In 1941 we went to Fort Smallwood and along the Skyline Drive in Virginia, in Daddy’s then brand new 1941 Plymouth. Peter and I always sat together in the back seat of the car. Peter on the left, Larry on the right. After the War gasoline was no longer rationed, and we were able to take longer trips. By this time Peter was very interested in maps and map reading. He obtained a lot of government survey maps and studied them in detail. At that time when you were planning a trip you could send a postcard to a gasoline company and they would send you free maps marked with the roads to take. Esso was our families gasoline of choice, so requests were sent to Esso headquarters in Washington DC. When the packet of maps arrived, Peter studied them carefully and during the trip he would be the co-pilot. “Intersection coming up in about two minuets’ he would announce as we drove along. Sure enough in about two minuets we would cross the intersection.
When Peter was attending McDonogh, which was a boarding school, he would take a bus from the school to the B&A RR at Camden Station on Friday evening. On Sunday evening, after dinner, we would get in the car for the trip back to McDonogh. I always enjoyed these trips because in those pre-expressway days Daddy would go by different routes and I got to see a lot of different scenery.
Peter and I were expected to due chores around the house. Most of these we did not like doing, but probably the worst was cleaning off the chicken house drop boards. These were large sheets of Masonite that were located in a track below the roosts the chickens used at night while they were asleep. On the outside of the chicken house was a wide slot door which could be raised to expose the drop board. Below this slot was a pit in the ground with a wooden cover. It was our job, every Saturday, to open the slot and take the cover off the pit, then pull the drop board out until the leading edge tilted down to the edge of the pit. Then Peter on one side, and Larry on the other, took hoe in hand and began scraping the smelly mess into the pit, while trying not to fall into the pit ourselves.
During the summer it was our job to mow the lawn, and ‘mow’ meant physically push a rotary-style lawn mower. Peter was assigned the east side of the yard, and I had the west side. When we finished that part we both had to do the section on the other side of the driveway.
During the gardening season Pop would leave a ‘to do’ list for us before he went off to the Post Office. Some mornings it was ‘ weed the rose garden’, other days it was’ weed the tomatoes’ or ‘tie up the tomatoes’ or ‘dust the beans’ ( with bug insecticide) . What ever the chore du jour we were expected to complete it before we could even think about play activity.
About the time Peter started at McDonogh we got separate bedrooms. Actually I was moved out of the rear bedroom and Peter got to take over the entire room, including the double bed. He quickly began filling it with his collection of maps and stacks of the newly introduced 33rpm long-playing records. He even bought one of the new FM radios so he could listen to classical music.
While Peter was at McDonogh, and then the year he was at MIT, I did not see much of him and out interests and choice of friends and activities separated. For some reason the the double ’ to do ’ list became a single Larry list with just as many items on it. Luckily by that time a gasoline-powered lawnmower was in the tool house.
I Began at the Maryland Institute while Peter was still there, so we got to ride the B&A bus to Baltimore and the #10 BTC trackless trolley up Howard Street to school every morning. Once again big brother was there to ease my way into life at the Maryland Institute.
