Brady: A Personal Rememberance

Brady’s family continues this blog in his memory. Today’s guest post is written by John “Jed” Vaughan, Brady’s childhood friend from down the street. This tribute was read at Brady’s memorial service.

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I’m very honored to stand here and recount a few memories of Brady, my oldest and closest friend. But I always assumed it would be the other way around – that Brady would be standing here saying a few words about me – because he had such endurance, such apparently endless reserves of vitality. But life as we know is unpredictable.

He and I first met in the third or fourth grade at Longfellow School in Muskogee, which means we knew each other for sixty years, even though there were entire decades when we didn’t see each other because I lived at a great distance from him.

We grew up five blocks from each other and spent our spare time doing what boys did fifty years ago, when television hadn’t yet become a habit with children: We drew pirate treasure maps and fought endless duels with swords made of broomsticks. We held two-man archery tournaments, until we lost all of our arrows in the tall grass of a field behind Brady’s house. We slept outdoors there on summer nights, discussing important issues – like girls, and what to do about them – while the owls hooted from nearby trees and fleets of mosquitoes whined in our ears. We made many early-morning hikes to a bluff south of Muskogee (we called it a “mountain”) – then hiked the four miles home again in the stifling afternoon heat. We lived outdoors and went almost everywhere on our bikes. The usual destinations were dry gullies, overgrown creek banks, and dense woods near the Midland Valley Railroad tracks. I believe we thought of ourselves as the last of the great explorers.

It was on those adventures that Brady and I became closer than brothers. Following Tom Sawyer, we swore an oath, pricked our fingers and signed our names in our blood on a piece of parchment I found in a neighbor’s trash can.

Throughout our youth Brady was always about five inches taller than I was. By the eighth grade he out-topped every boy in our class – and he just kept growing. Some of us worried he might never stop growing. But his height was of great practical benefit to me, since the mean kids at school  – the boys who were shaving and had five-o’clock shadow at fourteen – never bothered me while I was in Brady’s company.

As close as we were, we became still closer while suffering together through 10^th-grade algebra. When the term began, neither of us had the slightest idea what algebra might be good for, or why anyone in his right mind would want to study it. When the class ended in the spring we still hadn’t a clue. I raged about the pointlessness of it all, but Brady didn’t complain – not to me anyway. Instead he went to talk to our teacher. With an honesty that was always a part if him, he explained that algebra was as confusing to him as a Latin manuscript. Mrs. Sherman was impressed by his forthrightness and made him a deal: if he would do his homework faithfully every might, she’d see that he got through her class with a “C”. So he got a C in algebra. And I – who didn’t dare to admit my incompetence – finished with a “D”.

The was maybe my first inkling that Brady was not only a high-spirited companion – he also had a shrewd practical streak an a talent for public relations, for dealing with people.

Those traits, with his humor and strong work ethic, served him throughout his life: in his many part-time jobs while he put himself through college; in his career as a teacher and admired principal; as a high-energy salesman of educational materials; as a devoted husband and nurturing father; as a talented choir director at several churches, and as a surrogate parent and host to foreign students, several of whom lived with Brady and Linda for long months at a time. His commitment to people took original forms, and required more from him than many of us are ready to give.

What Brady was in boyhood he remained the rest of his life: an explorer and risk-taker, always ready to try something new. He liked to tell about the time, around twelve, when he crawled for half a mile through a dark, muddy, underground drainage culvert – just to see where it led. I told him: “Brady, you could have met a dozen poisonous snakes in there.” He said: “Well, but I didn’t!”

He had the curiosity, idealism, and improvisational approach to life found in so-called “classic books for boys”: Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, The Three Musketeers, and so on. But Brady didn’t read those books unless he was forced to. He was not overly fond of books because you had to sit still to read them – and he couldn’t do that for long. It was my job to read the books, then assemble the props we needed to re-enact them: swords, lanterns, bed rolls, map-making materials, odd bits of glass that could serve as pirate treasure. Brady was content to let me do this – then add his own improvisations to “liven it up a bit”.

In his fifties, he and Linda traveled the country in every direction on his big motorcycle. I told him he was nuts and was going to break his neck. He said: “Ohhh now, quit your worryin’!” Later, when he had advanced kidney disease, he and Linda chaperoned whole tribes of students on difficult trips to China and the Peruvian Andes. As many of you know, he carried a portable kit so he could perform life-saving dialysis in his hotel rooms. He did this at 8,000 feet at Machu Picchu, where the air is so thin that healthy tourists occasionally black out. Most people waiting for new kidneys don’t go to the Andes. But Brady wasn’t most people.

When I returned to Oklahoma twenty months ago, after living elsewhere for forty-five years, I came to a city and a state that had changed dramatically from what I knew in the 1940s, ‘50s, and early 1960s. During my first months in Tulsa, after the 2007 ice storm, I was lost and confused. I knew only three or four people in the entire state. I was lonely, occasionally depressed – not at all sure I had made the right decision in moving back to my Oklahoma roots.

Just weeks before I arrived, Brady had had his kidney transplant. He was numb in his right leg and feet from nerve damage; he had muscle, skeletal and back pain, and crept along on a cane. Despite that he visited me or phoned me every week, often several times a week, even when he had trouble climbing the steps to my house. He showed me around town, invited me out to lunch, took me home to dinner, gave me a steady stream of advice, helped me set up a bank account, took me clothes shopping – all that and more. Unasked. He remembered my birthday, though I hadn’t mentioned it. Meanwhile his health problems multiplied.

Yet he always had a joke – or four or five jokes. He told them gleefully, with the ease of someone practiced in amusing others. He loved the thought that he was about to make somebody cackle and nearly fall off his chair. Brady had a pronounced theatrical streak, and that was part of his charm. When I visited him at Hillcrest several times, he was telling jokes from his hospital bed. And for this 68^th birthday he wanted only one item: a joke book. This man knew how to live. He seems to have thought life was a sort of expedition we were all sharing. He only stopped helping and amusing others when he could no longer sit up.

For many years, as a newspaper man, I met and interviewed all kinds of people, some of them remarkable for assorted virtues. But I truly have never known anyone with more spirit, more hope and good humor than this long-legged, warm-hearted brother of mine, who brightened the years of my boyhood, and did the same again fifty years later, when I most needed it.

We who knew Brady were hugely blessed. And because he was so tuned into people, I think he understood how much we’ll miss him.

He and She: A Benediction

Brady’s family continues this blog in his memory. Today’s guest post is written by Gail Hopson, Brady’s childhood friend from church camp.

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Music sent her there. A chance to sing spun her out from family, away from high school friends, to make the trip on the greyhound bus alone. He sang along the way in a car filled with teenagers, from halfway across the country. In that summer of 1957, he and she were both fifteen, lean, lovely and lonely.

The first piece of music they sang together was a benediction.

“The Lord bless you and keep you…..” Those sounds and words held the beginning and ending of intense choral singing, young love, and life lived in the moment.

Before the end of the first day, he was by her side on the marble steps of the college. They walked into town and sat in the chapel holding hands, bathed in the light from the stained glass windows. Repetition, a very strong glue, bound and molded them. They returned each afternoon. “The Lord lift his countenance upon you….”

He almost gave her poison ivy in the evening’s darkness. She nearly tipped their canoe in the sparkling lake. There was a lot of laughter. Each was a mirror for the other, reflecting a need to be accepted, understood, desired, smiled upon.

Under the stars in the cool northern air they felt like they had come home. The words they spoke floated away with the singing. Only one word she recalled—comfortable.

“And give you peace, and give you peace…..”

Forty years later she was listening to the radio and heard a rich, deep, humorous voice, a vaguely familiar one. He spoke his name and she knew. “The Lord make his face to shine upon you…..”

It was certain from their letters that he remembered and she remembered—not the same things, but the important ones. Their different lives were separated by miles, years and dreams; yet there was something shared. “And be gracious, gracious unto you….”

No photos were exchanged, that was not the point; but it was necessary to visit together with families. He traveled to see her. She smiled. “Amen.”

Walking Tall

Carrying on Brady’s memory through stories. Today’s guest post is by Renee Pilant, his oldest daughter.
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As most people know, Dad had glomerulonephritis, a chronic disease that affects the kidneys. He had had it for over 25 years, I believe, before he finally received the kidney transplant on the 5^th phone call to come to the hospital.  The other four times the kidneys either went to someone else or they weren’t viable for transplantation.  When I was 17 years old, I developed my own chronic illness, Crohn’s disease.  And even though they weren’t the same diseases, Dad and I shared our progress and the ways we lived with them throughout the years.

The year that I turned 17 I was in a hospital room in severe pain and without a diagnosis. I had been there for a week, I think, when I was finally diagnosed with Crohns and was able to be walked.  It’s pretty interesting having to have a person ‘walk’ you, and Dad was the first person to be by my side walking me. We went around the nurses’ station and it felt like we were walking to China.  He told me we could take it easy, but expected me to do this again tomorrow and every day until I went home. He told me to stand up straight and don’t look down. He was teaching me how to walk again.

I carried that attitude with me when I developed diabetes.  I’d report my A1C (a blood test that checks for a three month average of blood sugar levels) to dad.  He encouraged me and I was always proud to report my usually normal level.  The last thing Dad told me was, “I want you to take care of yourself.”

Last month when we were helping him get dressed and getting him ready to go to the ophthalmologist, I was thinking about how he had walked me around the floor of the hospital. I was holding his walker for him, and I couldn’t believe he wanted to go.  Everyone told him he didn’t have to, and none of us expected him to do anymore than what he had already done.

Obviously, he was teaching that day.

Bees, Swimming and Roman Candles

Carrying on Brady’s memory through stories. Today’s guest post is by one of Dad’s cousins, John Hobensack.
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I’m so very sorry for the loss of your Dad. He was truly a kind man, a gentle giant.

I have many memories of your dad. He took me on what was truly one of the best days of my life, a swimming trip to Lake Tenkiller. I don’t remember who all went, only that his Volkswagen was full to overflowing. I was afraid I wouldn’t get to go, but he fit me in between the rear seat and the rear window. I was 11 or 12 at the time. We had some army air mattresses from the surplus place in Muskogee that we used as floats and just had a wonderful, carefree day swimming, jumping off the rocks and generally goofing off. It was such a strong memory that I drove past that place on one of my much later trips to Muskogee.

Another time your dad, your grandad, and I were driving back from somewhere, it was very hot and we had the windows down (again in the VW). Grandad was in the back for some reason, I guess I had longer legs, and a huge bumblebee got sucked in the driver’s side window, just missing your dad. He fidgeted around for a minute until he was sure the bee wasn’t on him. When your dad had settled down, Grandad leaned forward and ran his finger lightly on the hair on the back of your dad’s neck, making him think the bee was crawling up his neck. Your dad swatted at what he thought was the bee, nearly wrecking us in the process.

Another time I spent a night or two with you guys in Tulsa, I think Gia was maybe 4 or so, you had a dachsund and another little dog I think. Anyway, your dad and I made maces out of an old bedspread, used garbage can lids for shields, and beat each other silly. Then there was the duel with Roman Candles…

The Construction Cat

Brady’s family continues this blog in his memory.

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Being a public school educator in Tulsa, Dad decided to supplement his income during the summers with construction work. He was rather handy at building things, and he kept quite the complement of carpentry tools in the garage – including a giant table saw – so, it was a good fit.

One summer, his crew had been tearing down an old building to make way for new, when he heard this weak, “eee aww” coming from somewhere within the building. He paid it no mind the first time. But by the third or fourth time, he couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to investigate.

Inside of one of the partially demolished walls, he found a ten-day-old kitten, mewing “eee aww,” as if she had no idea how to properly meow. Mama cat was long gone, as were any siblings this wee one might have had.

Now, Dad had zero love for pets, especially cats. But, he knew his two daughters would L-O-V-E a new pet, so he picked the kitten up and brought her home. When he told us the story of how he found her, I think it was my more creative sister who decided to call her Wallina.

Fast-forward a few years to when Wallina turned up pregnant.

Despite my sister’s and my best efforts, Wallina had clearly imprinted, goose-style, upon Dad. She was wider than she was longer during the later stages of her pregnancy, and waddled after him wherever he went. One day, when Wallina looked especially pregnant, we began to worry that she’d plop out those kittens mid-walk somewhere. So Dad took up residence on the recliner, and dangled his hand down the side into a box in which Wallina reclined. When he had to go to the bathroom, she’d labor out of the box (ha ha) and waddle after him. The only time she’d sit still was when Dad had his hand in that damn box.

She also gave birth with his hand in that damn box. So, here’s this 6-foot-6-inch pet-hatin’ construction-worker-slash-school-principal dude, playing midwife with this cat. Imagine.

After it was over, Wallina decided to move her new family into the bowels of my bedroom closet, which we didn’t find out about for three days. We kept two of her offspring, Tu-Tu and Bobby Socks, but Wallina was always our favorite. And Dad was always hers.

Flying, Sliding and Butt-Walking

Brady’s family continues this blog in his memory. Today’s post is written by my sister, Renee Pilant, the first born.

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I started flying through the air at a very young age.  Dad would pick me up and toss me into the air and catch me with great ease.  Sometimes he would ‘fly’ me to Uncle Bill, or Grandad, or any other person he trusted enough to catch me and fly me back to him.  I have a picture of him and Uncle Bill with me in mid- flight.  I remember running up to Dad’s legs and asking him to fly me.  I think it scared my mother and grandmother half to death, but I was having fun!

Some of my favorite childhood memories of Dad were spent in a cabin in Spavinaw, Oklahoma.  It sat atop a hill overlooking Lake Spavinaw.  There was knotted pine paneling and a front porch swing that was filled with many Methodist youth during sleepovers.

The first summer we were there we were going to hike down the hill to the creek below where there was a wonderful swimming hole.  We started with great grandeur and large walking sticks.  Dad went first and we fought our way through the leaves and other large vegetation.  Dad would hold the limbs for the rest of us as we climbed our way down.  We walked over logs and under grapevines, and the trees were beautiful and covered us completely.  It was a park-like setting where we heard squirrels, woodpeckers, many other birds, and saw many animals.

We were about half way down the hill when Dad suddenly stopped.  We hiked our way over to where he was and I think we all gasped at the same time.  The nice, beautiful hill had taken a very sharp decline down to the water.  We all looked back up to the cabin that was now very far away, and then we looked back to Dad.  Dad carefully climbed down the ledge of sharp edges of limestone, and finally reached the ground.

I remember that he looked in between the jutting sheets of limestone for snakes.  I really, really hate snakes, but I’m sure that they had heard us coming and decided to vacate the premises for security reasons.  Dad helped me down, and I took a step and slid a few feet and fell into a small tree.  I was pretty grateful for that tree!  Dad taught us how to walk sideways, and we side-stepped down the very, very large hill hanging onto small trees as we went.

Unfortunately, the hill decided to spread out into a little treeless, sideways meadow.  We got onto our knees and climbed backwards down the stupid mountain.  My knees were hurting, so I decided to stand up and look for some tree I could fall into.  Gravity had a different idea, and I started rolling.  A stump finally stopped me, and, unable to get to my feet or my knees, I decided to go down the mountain on my bottom.  I butt-walked down and saw Dad sliding downhill to catch my rolling sister.  Bottoms in unison, we laughed our way down to the bottom of the mountain to the creek where many children and their parents were playing.   It was a great day for hiking and learning how to walk down a mountain.

The Bicycle Wreck

Dad passed away today, November 8, 2009, at 2:42 pm. A few of we family members will be taking this blog over from here. We hope to share stories about Brady that demonstrate his sense of adventure, his compassion, and his love of fun.

Today’s guest blogger is myself, Gia Lyons, his youngest daughter.

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When I was about six years old, we lived in Mountain Manor. By the subdivision’s name, you can tell that the place wasn’t flat. It had steep enough hills that you really had to work at it to get your bike up the roads – going down was much easier, of course.

Just ask my Dad.

One day, he decided that it was time I learn how to ride a bicycle, but not in the way you might think. What did he do? He lifted me up onto the handlebars of his bicycle, told me to hold on, and away we went. It was the 1970’s, so thoughts of helmets and knee pads were yet to be had. I mean, how hurt could you get coasting down and pedaling up small hills, really?

What Dad neglected to factor in was the fact that his youngest had giant feet, just like him (for the record, he wore a size 15B). This meant that even at age six, I wore the biggest Buster Brown clodhoppers on the planet. I mean, these shoes were so present all by themselves that they almost had their own personality. And hoo boy, did they ever exert their presence on this particular day.

Picture this: I’m nervously holding onto these handlebars under my butt, happily daring fate because I was secure in the knowledge that my Dad knew everything, and would keep me safe. He decides that only the steepest hill will do, naturally, so he pedals across the neighborhood to the top of this slope, all the while neatly balancing the random swing of my legs with their giant Buster Brown counterweights on the ends.

And then we descend.

Physics being what it is, my shoes were naturally pulled forward by gravity, where they immediately inserted themselves into the front spoke of Dad’s bicycle. And, physics being what it is, we flipped over – Dad, me, the bicycle – to land unceremoniously in the middle of the road, halfway down the hill. Somehow, Dad avoided crushing me and kept the bicycle off of me, but I’m pretty sure one of my Buster Browns found its way to his crotch.

The damage? Just a few scratches and lots of limping. He had to carry a blubbering me and the bicycle four blocks home, starting with the trek back up the hill.

I’ll never forget that adventure.

New Chemo Drug

I have started a new chemo called oxalplatin. I am still on the gemsar, also.  I won’t bore you with the details of my recent hospitalization, except to say I was in for two full weeks to have 3 more stints put in where the tumor is.  The numbers on the tumor at the last blood sample showed the tumor had shrunk significantly.   But, the CT SCAN showed the tumor had grown over the end of the stint already in place.  That news was a bit discouraging. 

The good news is that I am to begin physical therapy at home three times a week.  My right arm which has very limited use and my right leg and ankle will be the targets of the therapy.  I will keep you posted on how that goes. 

Staying positive and believing that I am  being cured and basically am cured is essential.  I do a lot of visualizing because I know if I can see it and believe it I can achieve it.  Hope all of you are doing well.  Brady

My Week in the Hospital?

Some of you know, some of you may not know that I was in an unnamed hospital for a week.  On May 17 or there abouts, I noticed my right leg, foot, and ankle were a little swollen.  On May 19, they were even moreso.  My right leg could have belonged to any Dallas Cowboy offensive lineman. I called my primary and got an immediate appointment.  As he looked at it he said, “I bet there is a blood clot”.  Sending me immediately to ultrasound imaging confirmed his belief.  My next stop was hospital registration, then on to a hospital semiprivate room. 

You know, hospital rooms are not fun, nor are they meant to be.  The best entertainment was provided by my wife and the other myriad of people who came to see me.  Linda and I and my mother-in-law, Zelma, played cards and other board games.  Believe you me it was hilarious being beaten at these games, something akin to being beaten like a red headed step child.  Well, I did win 2 or 3.  The only other form of entertainment was the television.  On this hospital TV system you can only go forward through the 78 or so channels; in order to turn it off I had to hold down the channel button until the TV went off.  If I was scrolling through the channels to find CNN and went past the channel,  I was doomed to turn the stupid thing off or go through the rest of the channels until I rotated back to CNN.  I still can’t figure out what chimpanze designed the system. 

All of the meals were essentially inedible.  I am totally convinced that if anyof you came to Tulsa and wanted a piece of incredibly dry chicken or fish, you should head for the Medical Center near downtown and you could actually order a piece of either and  get it.  The scrambled eggs or egg substitue were served in a perfect pile that never lost it’s shape.  One could probably drop the tray on the floor and the eggs would not lose that shape.  I’ll conclude by saying that the food was terrible.

Getting rest in a hospital is virtually impossible.  I usually watched TV until 10:00 pm or so.  After sleeping for about an hour, in would come someone to give me medicine.  A couple of hours later came an aide wanting to take my vital signs: temperature, blood pressure, pulse, etc.  A short while later maybe an hour, came the phlebotemist wanting blood, oh joy.  After another two hours, came the vital signs person again.  I think a mirror held up to my nose would have given her some great info, like I’m breathing.  What could be better.  Sometimes early in the morning the phlebotomist and the medicine giver would show up at the same time.  Of course I was a hostage, I could not very well resist their advances.  Getting rest in a hospital, ha, I had a better chance of winning the Indy 500. 

If I was trying to rest or sleep, I was found quite easily by the hospital staff; on the other hand, if I requested a bottle of water (ordered by my nephrologist), or a Tylonol for pain, I was no where to be found.  Lewis and Clark might have been good choices for addition to the staff at that point.  The typical answer to such a request was “I’ll tell your tech”.   Often, it took more than three requests to receive the item in question.  The medical service was great.  The peripheral service was terrible.

Rule # 1: avoid hospitals at all costs. You lose weight because of the food you can’t eat.  It is the job of the kitchen people to see whose patients loose the most weight.  For any kitchen helper whose patient who actually dies of hunger while in the hospital receives an all expense paid trip to the Mayo Clinic or Disney world.

Rule # 2: avoid hospitals at all costs especially if you need some rest, because you will get none.   Sleep is out of the question.  The people who come around at night have needles and gauges and other instruments, but their primary job is simply to wake patients from another wise sound sleep.

Rule #3: avoid hospitals at all costs, but if you have to go to this particular medical center you will have to arrange for your own search party, because many times you will turn up missing for long periods of time. 

I have no new news about my cancer at this time, but I go for labs, Dr. appointment, and chemotherapy tomorrow: 7/1/09.  Your prayers are still needed, and thank you.

Sibling Blackmail

Mother remarried in 1946 to a high school sweet heart.  His name was Bill Dawson.  There was also a “little” Bill, our brother, who came along about a year after the wedding, .  Unfortunately, Bill, Sr.  died in 1950 or 1951 from a rheumatic heart condition.  So, mother was left to raise three children by herself.  This is not to say that she didn’t have help from her sisters and brothers, but she did the bulk of the work herself making sure we were clothed, fed, and taught good values. Much later in life when we were grown, mother said that what kept her going was the fact that she knew she had to put us through college.  I think we all worked some, but not enough to cover all expenses.  How she did it financially is still a bit of a mystery.  None of us ever remember her saying “you are going to college and graduate”; it was just expected.

The house we lived in on south 29th street had two bedrooms and one bathroom when we moved in.  As we grew older, mother eventually had to build on an addition that  included an extra bedroom .  This new bedroom became Carole’s upon completion.  The other rooms were a closet , a small bathroom with a shower, and a fairly spacious den finished with knotty pine paneling.  Mother and the three of us were proud of how it looked.  The house was divided into three sections.  The south section had a front bedroom, a bathroom and two more bedrooms pretty much in a straight line. When you stood in the living room, you could see through the dining room into the den; this was the middle section.  The last section on the north, were the kitchen, the utility room and the north part of the den.  The house sat on a 50′ by 75′ or 100′ lot, but  when I mowed, it seemed like two acres.

My sister,  Carole, and I got along resonably well.   Most of the time we just tolerated each other and tried to stay out of each other’sway.  Carole liked the indoors and liked to read.  I liked the outdoors and liked to play.  I suspect that at the time, her fervent prayer was that it not rain on weekends.  If it did, many times I was stuck inside, and she possibly was miserable.  I can remember one time when Bill, Sr. put us both on the porch to fight it out.  It was a draw.  We probably embarrassed ourselves, but really didn’t hurt one another.  We were about eight or nine years old. 

In the last post to the blog, I mentioned a hunting knife,  which I sometimes carried in it’s scabbard on my belt.  Who knows when you will need a hunting knife what with all of that territory to explore.

I came by possession of the knife, in a somewhat different way.  A couple of years before I had acquired a gun.  It was a real one, but it did not work.  I can’t remember if I found it, or traded something for it or what.  The gun was a pistol without a trigger guard.  The handle covers were missing as was the firing  pin.  This firing pin is on the hammer and it is the part that actually strikes the bullet in the chamber and makes it fire.  I found out that the gun was a rim-fire 32 caliber, 5 shot pistol.  It was similar to the gun that killed Abraham Lincoln, and was possibly used during the Civil War.  I am sure it had an interesting history. 

Anyway, I saw the bone handled knife at a local sporting goods store.  As time went by, I decided I had to have this knife.  So after several visits and being somewhat of a pest to the store owner, he agreed to trade the knife for the gun.  Years later, I realized this was not a wise trade.

So with the knife in my possession, I was a true adventurer.  One day, Carole and I were at home alone as we were frequently during the summer, because of mother’s holding down a full time job.  We were in the kitchen and at the time there was no rancor between us.  I was showing her how one might defend himself witha knife.  I knew nothing about the art of self defense, withor without a knife.  As I was sort of waving the knife about, I inadvertently stabbed Carole with only the smallest portion of the tip in the soft spot between the bone at the heel of the hand and the first bone of the wrist.  The injury was very slight.  After a profuse apology, Carole said she would not tell mother.  In exchange for her silence, she wanted me (ha, blackmailed me) into signing a paper that read something like this, “I Brady Cypert will do whatever Carole Cypert wants me to do when she wants me to do it”.   

Many years later, we (mother, Carole, and I) were going through some old papers and photographs.  Somewhere in the midst of all the memorabilia we found that note.  As we can recall, since its been 20 years or so since we last  saw it, a particular time frame for my servitude was unclear.  I’m sure it was clear at the time of the incident.

I no longer carry a knife except a 2″ pocket knife given to me by a dear friend.  In retrospect, Carole is a wonderful sister and a great friend.  Needless to say, the period of sibling blackmail expired many years ago. 

A 911 operator receives a frantic phone from a man hunting in the woods.  He tells the 911 operator he sees a man’s body lying in the grass.  The operator tells the man to calm down.  She tells the man to put his phone down and go and make sure the man is dead.  The man complies and after a moment of silence the operator hears a gun shot.  The man comes back to his phone and says, “OK, what do I do now”.