November 27, 1964
It’s the end of the last day of vacation. We “worked” in the morning and Bob and I went for a ride in the afternoon. He wanted to see Kent Falls and I wanted to climb Monument Rock but he was driving. Maybe next time. I went babysitting at the King’s house and earned $1.25. Mom and Dad went to see “How the West was Won” and brought back a couple of their friends. It took me about an hour to figure out who they were — Jack Libby and wife! They have a doll of a son who just bought a car and is sad because it can’t neck in it, it’s too small. Tsk, tsk.
November 11, 1975
Bob called! Has a new woman, “Bonnie Jean”, and he wants to show her off and come to visit, around Christmas. Loverly!It seems funny that I didn’t mention Bob’s visit of last spring…it was one of the (many) high points of the summer. It was so great to have him around, that it affected my whole summer. It may even lie at the root of my problems this fall. I have been thinking about Bob a lot.Friday night/Saturday morning I dreamt that he came to visit, I even hugged him, and it felt real. Then I work up, and it wasn’t real + I was so pissed.
I have an image of my life: a trout struggling upstream, hardly knowing why, only knowing he must.
November 27, 2022
(Yes, I have been journaling for a long time.) Today, I wanted to jump forward in time and see where I was in my twenties. And there was my brother, Bob, again. Only two years apart and often the new kids in town, my brother and I were very close. I used to describe him as the only one who had known me all my life.
Our lives shifted in the sixties, but at first followed similar paths. In the years since that afternoon drive to Kent, we had both graduated from high school and college and moved away from New Milford. We had both married our college sweethearts. That changed in 1969, when he decided to leave the US to avoid the draft. Bob and his wife had moved to Canada and eventually divorced. When when he was in Toronto and we were in upstate New York, we saw each other once or twice a year. In 1974 Jim and I had moved to Rhode Island. Bob’s visit in the summer of 1975, after President Carter’s amnesty for draft evaders, was the first time he came to us since 1969. Reading this entry brought tears to my eyes.
Since then, Bob and his wife Bonnie have moved farther north; we’ve moved farther south. Visiting means a seventeen-hour drive or an expensive flight. We are both in our seventies and it has been too long. Soon, Bob. A real hug. It can’t be too soon.