I am noticing that many of these memories concern big brother Fred, and it seems surprising to me because although Fred was nine years older and I always looked up to him in awe, I spent much more time with brother Dan, when we were younger.

I used to say that when Dan turned 13, he turned on the AM radio and departed from the family. There is some truth in that, but just some.

Certainly before he hit 13, Dan put up with me and played with me. I have one very vivid memory that I mentioned to him and he didn’t remember. But I do.

He would play a game with me called Whoops Jonnie. Turns out, of course, that this is a known game but I have never come across it in any other context than when Dan played it with me.

One kid, me, holds out their hand with fingers and thumb spread out. The other kid, Dan, runs their forefinger up and down between my fingers, saying something like “whoops, Jonnie, Jonnie, whoops, Jonnie.” And then I was supposed to repeat what he did. 

But the trick is that the pattern of going up and down the fingers and saying variations of whoops and Jonnie was impossible to keep track of, so I never got it right.

And I knew that he was messing with me, that it was a kind of trick, and I would never ever get it right. But I didn’t care because he was playing with me in a gentle way and really, being a perfect big brother.