Brotherly Fights

When my brother Ken and I were younger we used to fight like two cats with their tails tied together and tossed over a clothesline. We had a few fist-to-cuffs before we grew up and became buddies. We were born four years apart. Ken was born, then four years later, our sister Kathy Beck Basinger was born. We boys always shared a bedroom, and that was the problem. It was often the reason that caused a flare up of tempers between us, like a match struck on the side of a match box.

The fights in our bedroom were usually settled by dueling pillows. Now you may be thinking about the light poly fiber filled pillows of today. No, our pillows were the ones filled with feathers. Again, someone is going to think, light puffy feathers, what kind of weapon is that? The pillows that I’m remembering are feather filled pillows that have been passed down through the family. The fluffiness was had long disappeared. Those feathers were broken down. All that is left was a solid mass, more like a bag of sand. When the pillows were swung in anger, it would knock a person off their feet and possibly give someone a concussion.

One battle I can remember was I swung my pillow and Ken was knocked into a metal trash can…butt first. He wasn’t able to get out by himself. That ended the battle. We both started laughing and whatever offense that started the skirmish was forgotten. A second fight I can recall, Ken made a powerful direct hit on me. I was knocked off my feet and into our bedroom’s plasterboard wall. To our horror, a huge hole appeared. It was the size and shape of my buttocks. Again the skirmish was abandoned; this time, not because of laughter. It was out of fear. Fear of what our mom, Sybil Miner Beck and my dad Edson Carl Beck would say and do when they saw the crater in our bedroom wall.

There were other skirmishes. Most were outside. My brother was more agile and would often run away dodging my anger. I was older and faster and could run him down, if I could run in a straight line or could figure out which direction his next maneuver would be. So we’d often tire out before any real confrontations took place.