Siblings

I was the first-born in my family in April 1957, and after my arrival, my parents wisely waited some time before having child No. 2, my sister, who was born the day after Christmas in 1959.

I was told I was a real-life "Dennis the Menace" when I was little in those pre-Rochdale years, and I guess my mother, in particular, did not want two holy terrors in the house back to back.

Anyway, my sister and I shared a room in Kew Gardens Hills, and when we moved to our two-bedroom apartment in Rochdale, we continued to share a room during our seven years there, as we went from little kids to teens.

It is never easy sharing a room with a sibling, and it is even more difficult when you share a room with a sibling of the opposite sex.

The line of demarcation is very, very clear, and it certainly was in our room.

My parents put up a divider in the middle of the room, and that split the room roughly in half.

I had the part of the room near the door, my sister had the other half.

We had our beds lined up the same way on both sides of the room, but that is pretty much where the similarities ended.

I had a typical boys room, with pictures all of my sports heroes--Yankees and Knicks--all over the door and on my walls.

I remember that when the Knicks won their first championship in 1970, I stapled caricatures which I bought of each member of the team on my door, and at one point, stapled my hand to the door.

Don't ask.

I had a TV by the window, an old Zenith black and white TV, my comic books were kept on shelves right by the door, and I had my desk pretty much in the middle of my side of the room next to my dresser.

But if you crossed the line of demarcation, you were in my sister's side of the room.

And you knew it wasn't "Boys Town" anymore.

My sister had pictures of her music and TV idols all over her walls, culled from magazines like Tiger Beat. Early on, it was Davy Jones, but soon after, David Cassidy was all over every inch of her walls.

She also had a desk and a dresser, but David Cassidy looked down on every inch of that room.

However, when she got a little older, I was barred from the room in the morning, because even though David Cassidy could look down from the walls, my sister needed her "privacy" as she was maturing, so I would get dressed for my daily activities in my parents' room.

Looking back, the great thing about sharing a room with your opposite sex sibling is that there is a constant stream of opposite sex friends constantly making calls to whatever side of the room you aren't on, but alas, I was too young to take advantage of that, and to a certain extent, my sister was too, although she was much more savvy in that regard than I was.

And sharing a room for all those years kind of brought us closer together, although she probably didn't think that when, on occasion, I stood behind the curtain in the room and scared her when she was trying to go to sleep.

Hey, what's a big brother for?

I don't know if my sister is coming to the Reunion, but I do know there will be plenty of siblings there, and the shared experiences these siblings have will probably make mine pale by comparison.

Don't forget, the cutoff date is September 15, and brother (or sister), you won't regret being there!