Val

This is my sister. She wears combat boots. See?

After the combat boot stage, she started wearing this. We tried to tell her that NO ONE was wearing five-stripe purple and white socks anymore but she scoffed at us. She maintained that ALL the cool kids were carrying their t-bones, wearing those socks, what amounted to see through white shirts and those oh so attractive coach's shorts. No amount of reasoning could ever change her mind.

In the winter time, she decided that coach's shorts weren't warm enough so she started wearing this:

Once again, we tried to help her out by telling her that busby was over the top. I don't care if she did have five pounds of apples and a two pound bag of M&Ms in there for her after halftime snack, no one, and I mean NO ONE, was wearing the busby with the orange dicky by the early 80's. Here’s why: A) No one wants to eat an apple that has been stored on top of a sweaty head and B) M&Ms might not melt in your hand, but I guarantee they melt in a busby while marching Big Ten style pre-game and halftime shows! The other problem with this attire was that most of her class had stopped wearing clothes with giant letters on them sometime around Kindergarten. We told her if she didn't stop wearing stuff like this people were going to start talking. This was her response:

"Welcome Back Kotter" was very popular in the early 80's. Instead of saying, "Up your nose with a rubber hose", Val started saying, "Up your nose with my F attachment". Anyway, I guess she somehow thought that t-bone was THE accessory of the Class of 1981. It was very embarrassing to go anywhere with her because it was hard for her to get in the car with that nutty busby on, let alone make room for her trombone. She seemed to get a lot of joy out of poking people in the back of the head with her slide. Not to mention the fact that she was always taking that stupid busby off and eating something out of it like it was the drive through at McDonalds or something! Mel and I probably should have told Mom and Dad that Val was driving the car by using her slide to push the gas pedal instead of using her feet, which is the TRUE story about what happened to the orange car. Also, it's probably a good thing that no one had cell phones in the early 80's. Can you imagine driving the car with your slide, getting a snack out of your hat and texting at the same time? Insanity, I tell you! Inevitably, one day she was stopped by the police for driving while playing her trombone and this is her mug shot:

You would think that she would eventually outgrow this outlandish fashion she apparently loved to dress in. However, you would be wrong. Once she got out of high school, she graduated to this:

Yes, it is true that my sister was a Marching Rocket from Toledo at one time in her life. She still has the pulled muscles to prove that she could double time into the end zone at every home game while shouting "T...O...L...E...D...O....Toledo!". She was also immortalized on the front page of the Blade when someone took a picture of her doing sit ups during "two-a-days" band camp. To be honest, I'm not sure how she managed to survive these practices at UT since that hat is obviously not big enough to store enough fortification inside of it.

I said all that to say that I am thankful for my sister. It might not sound like it since I spent the first part of this entry, ribbing her for her (lack of) fashion sense. However, it is true that I am thankful for her. Here's why:

1. She used to beat me up a lot when we were kids because she was mean. Just kidding. Usually I deserved it because, shockingly, I was quite mouthy when I was younger and I used to do stuff to annoy her on purpose. Because of that, she had to show me how to shut up. A lot. :)

2. She let me live with her when I was in college.

3. She didn't get too mad at me and Mel when we ate the cheese and grapes she had ready to take with her on her honeymoon. That’s probably because she was planning on wearing that stupid busby and stuffing food in there on her wedding day until Mel and I refused to be bridesmaids if she did. I’m pretty sure that if Keith had known about that, he would have thanked us long ago, since the busby would have ruined all of the wedding pictures. Your welcome Keith!

4. She lets me write stupid stuff like this about her and she will laugh whether she thinks it's funny or not. Probably because I will hold a table knife to her throat while she is reading it. Just kidding. I've never actually written about Val so I don't know if she will laugh or not and I have never held a table knife to her throat.

5. Val and Keith have a strong marriage that they work very hard to maintain. Even though they have problems just like everyone else, they work hard to put God first in their lives and their marriage and it shows.

6. She is a good example of what being a Christian means.

7. She is a good example of what being a Christian wife and mother means.

8. She homeschools all of her kids and is a good example for that too.

9. She likes to help other people and she does it quietly, without seeking recognition for it.

10. When she was a nurse, she was good at it and she still is even though she hasn't practiced it in a hospital setting for a long time now.

11. She likes to have fun and laugh and was fun to be around when we were kids. Except for that stupid alarm she had which was annoyingly loud and which she refused to ever get up and shut off, which of course made me and Mel have to listen to it and then pound on the wall until our hands were bloody from the little glass flecks Dad put in the plaster so it would sparkle and which were now embedded in our hands and then finally Val would finally stumble out of bed and shut it off and then stumble back into bed in order to ensure that she would be late for whatever she was supposed to be getting up for. Other than that though, she was ok.

12. She used to write run-on sentences (see above example) and spell stuff wrong and then ask me to fix her English Comp essays. I'm not sure Shakespeare could have fixed them. Also, he was dead even when Val was in school and even though she didn't know who he was. She does now though because she had to teach it to her kids.

13. I learned a lot from her since she is much older than I am. Some of the lessons I am unable to repeat here because they would get all three of us in trouble and they are not politically correct. Not that any of us are too concerned about being politically correct. For the record, the lesson that I vaguely refer to is historically accurate. We just can't repeat it. Shhhhh!

14. Even though my, ahem, creativity sometimes annoys her, she laughs anyway. Sometimes she rolls her eyes though.

15. She used to dutifully get out her dictionary to look up words I would use just to see what I was talking about or to prove that I was making up a word. Occasionally, I had to make up words to see if my family was paying attention to me since I was the middle kid who was always ignored. Now, Val just looks on webster.com or asks Deanna. Also, since Deanna knows more words than I do, I can’t make up words anymore.

16. When I "occasionally" act like a fool, she forgives me.

17. She doesn't compromise on what she believes is important.

18. She doesn't sweat. I mean, she sweats because everyone does, but she doesn't worry about stuff.

19. She is smart.

20. She is my sister and we have been through a lot of junk together. At times, the junk has divided us, but we have found ways around it, over it, through it or off it (anyone want to sled off the roof?) and figured out how to forgive when and where it was necessary. She has been and continues to be profoundly influential in my life and quite simply, I love her.

This is Val and Keith in Gatlinburg this summer. They will be married for 21 years in March!

I took poetic license with the fourth picture. Any good brass player will know that is just a regular ol’ slide trombone and not an F attachment.