Stephen

I have a Good Night Phone Call with my parents every night. I capitalize those words, in the middle of a sentence, because that has indeed become its proper name.

On most nights, when he's not slingin' late hours at his job or visiting with his various college friends, my good ol' brother Steve is at home to talk on the phone with me one-on-one after my parents are through.

And for some reason tonight, I have become overcome with missing him.

A memory popped into my head tonight that took me back to the days of late elementary school, where Steve was obsessed - OBSESSED - with Star Wars. We're talking, he was one of those kids with the cotton-print Millennium Falcon bedsheets that would put up a hissy fit if you stripped them off just long enough to WASH the damn things. He was serious.

And he had a fair collection of Star Wars action figures. Not going to lie, through bonding and being playmates, I acquired a few of my own Star Wars action figures.

But we would play with those toys together for hours. From lunchtime straight through supper, into the night, and pushing bedtime. Steve would read his Star Wars comic books, read the novels written as spin-offs to the George Lucas movies, and then come back to me to teach me the story line he just read. And then we would act it out and embellish it with our action figures.

And he LOVED it. He'd ask me every summer, "Ashley, can we start up another Star Wars Adventure???" (Again, capitalized because that had become its proper name.) :-)

I didn't mind it. Sure, I had my Barbies and LEGOS that I wanted to break in. But it was cool to hang out with Steve. Before things got complicated like homework and boys, driving lessons and trying out for high school sports (only to fail miserably). I think back on all of our years and I realize that he and I were actually really close.

We'd have our share of squaffles like any siblings - just ask Mom!! But overall, I think we were very sweet to each other and each have memories. (Remember playing Stoop Kid, Steve?) Of course, he remembers why I randomly yell out to him, "Hey Clevitch, WAKE UP, the show's over!" And I remember why he always answers back with, "Ooooh yeah, dig it!"

It was the ending voice-over during the credits to the Nickelodeon show, All That. Remember that show? Steve and I always used to think those ending credit voices were funny, so we'd mock them. And it has turned into an inside joke, sticking around for a decade later.

Gosh, I even remember Steve being so young that he wasn't even taught how to tell time yet. So on afternoons when he'd impatiently ask when Mom would come home from work, so we could have supper, I'd tell him, "After another two episodes of Power Rangers." It was my way of equating 1 hour to him: two half-hour shows. He lived his life on a clock of TV shows.

Oh, the simple life. When all you have to worry about is what happens after the Power Rangers catch the bad guys at the end of today's episode. :-)

Fastfoward to today, and I know that some girl will be so lucky to have Steve as a man of their house. Honey, you just have to get past his grotesquely stinky feet with the tree-climber toes, and the phase he's in right now where he leaves the occasional empty soda can laying around his bedroom.

He is a total gentleman, with the hugest heart. I am lucky to have him as a brother, and I'd like to think I am doing my best to maintain our good-friends relationship, despite me having been moved out of the house and away from him ever since I was 18.

Steve, I know you don't read this blog, but hey: thanks for a fond childhood. I miss ya!