Kith & Kin

My younger brother,* Eric, has always had a fascination with audio and video technology. I remember, when he was an RTV major in college, I played piano for a brief radio program he had put together for a class project. It had to contain certain elements, one of which was a musical number. He knew a college guy who played the accordion, and the guy agreed to play for the program. Eric made sure we all knew that this was to be done like live radio, so timings had to be perfect. And we would do it only once while his teacher, in the booth with him, looked on severely—just to screw the stress up one more little notch. (Come to think of it, most teachers looked severe back in the 1980s.) Then Eric gave us directions, and his speech went something like this: One of the first things to ensure a good performance is strict attention to the director. I’ll keep my directions simple…. If I make a slashing motion across my throat, it means “cut the scene short.” If I make a revolving motion wi...

Baby Keith. Mom ’ s idea of putting the baby ’ s age right in the photo was a stroke of genius. My mother often told me the story of the day she and Dad brought Keith home from the hospital. They laid him on the couch, and I, two-and-a-half years old, looked at him and said, “Where’s his mommy?” At some point thereafter I comprehended the fact that my mommy and daddy were also Keith’s mommy and daddy, and that meant we were brothers. When we were still quite young, Keith and I had our own TV program. It was broadcast every evening immediately after supper. The two of us would go into the living room, stand in front of a large mirror, and put on a comedy show. Its high-brow humor consisted mostly of two little boys dancing around and acting silly, the larger one repeatedly hitting the smaller one on the head and pushing him off camera because he had made a comment that was, in the estimation of the larger one, stupid—while the smaller one gamely played along, always smiling, willingly...

The other day I was trying to remember all the dogs I’ve ever owned. The first was Ella , short for “Cinderella,” a medium-sized black mix who barked incessantly. This was back in the era when a dog stayed outside, chained to her doghouse, and that was where she lived. No one thought of it as a cruel arrangement. But, as I s ay, she was a nonstop barker. In fact, one of the first phrases my little brother Eric learned to say—shouting at her from the kitchen window—was, “Ella! Be kawock!”   Which was his version of what he heard other family members shouting from the same location: “Ella! Be quiet!” We never bonded in any way (Ella and me, not Eric and me), and one day she was gone. This was also back in the era when you could call the dog catcher to remove your canine. Is that what happened to her? I don’t know, but I hope her next owner didn’t keep her chained to a doghouse. Our next dog was Missy . She was about the size of a chihuahua—no doubt she had some chihuahua blood mixe...

It ’ s December 1, 2023, and my brother Eric reminded me this morning that Mom would have turned 86 today were she still with us. Home at lunch by myself, I looked at an old picture of her, taken before I was born. She is young and slim and attractive; she ’ s pinning on a corsage, and she looks very happy. I looked at the photo and thought about Mom long enough for a painful lump of ice to form in my throat, melt, and come out my eyes. She was an amazing person—one in a million isn’t enough; she was one in a billion. Here are a few scattered memories of her that flutter around in my head from time to time. Days of Joy Mom knew how to raise boys. She knew what boys were like and how to handle them. She must have come by this naturally, because she wasn’t raised with boys—only her older sister. Maybe it wasn’t that she was a natural at “raising boys”; maybe it was just that she wasn’t going to let anybody buffalo her, be it a screaming three-year-old or a disrespectful teen. B...

Mom (Jan Skaggs) looking young, slim, and attractive. Late 1950s? As I go through the photos in this album and reproduce them here, I am so thankful she kept the album and labeled many of the photos with names and dates! Keith, Dad, and me on Dad’s Schwinn, June 1965. I remember riding the bike this way. It was always a treat to go riding with Dad—and a little scary, as I balanced on that bar. And uncomfortable too! We would ride to downtown Fredericksburg, crossing railroad tracks on the way — bumpity bumpity bump, hold on tight! I assume this is the Cleveland Airport, June 1965. No one was hijacking or blowing up planes yet, so security was quite lax. It was fun (and loud!) to watch them take off and land. L to R: Steve, Keith, Dad. My first cousin Jill Skaggs, daughter of Dad’s brother Leo and his wife, Bonnie. What a cutie! Two more first cousins, Eddie and Kathy, son and daughter of Dad’s brother Eddie and his wife, Shirley. I wish I could have known my Skaggs cousins better growi...