When I was the only child.

Back in the day, my family was dirt poor. For the majority of the childhood I can remember, we lived in a run-down haunted house in Bristol, Wisconsin with a broken barn which has since collapsed in on itself, a shed with a sagging roof that my dad used as his workshop, no cable TV, and, most of the time we were there, only one car that actually worked.

One of those things we didn't have was a washer/dryer set. So every week, my mom, my brother and I took a trip down to the laundromat in Trevor to wash all of our clothes. This was something that took about two hours, so usually, me and my brother, at some time, took a walk down the street to the gas station to get a soda or something to snack on. I remember one time when we went to the gas station, on the way there and back I was irritating my brother by singing Fastball's song "The Way." I don't have any visual for this memory except the pavement under my feet, which was really hot that day, and I was blinded because of the summer sun. 

I think because the song is about people running away, and it came out about the same time, I also associate it with the time my brother ran away from home. He had to be about sixteen at the time, and the way he explained it was that he asked my father while he was half asleep if he could spend a night at a friend's house, and since he was half sleeping he said yes without thinking about it.

My brother took a sleeping bag and walked to his friend's house because he couldn't drive at the time. He did go there and spend the night, but sometime that night they got it in their heads that since their life sucked that much, they were going to take off and never come back. My brother, his friend and one of his friend's friends got together and started south, intending to go to Chicago. They were gone for days, but they never did make it as far as Chicago because my parents had the cops out looking for them and they picked them up at a gas station and brought them home. 

While he was gone, though, I was having a great time. My parents were heartbroken and worried sick, but I was enjoying the peace and quiet at home because my brother... was not a very nice guy when he was a teenager. Very angry and almost abusive. But I think that changed a little when he came home that day. He spent a while by himself, then started being nicer in general.

But that's why I say I was an only child, even though I'm the youngest of three. One brother who'd moved out, and another who ran away for a few days.