Meet My Brother, Alton

Graphic by Donna

My one and only brother was 16 when I was born, and he was so embarrassed about it! He's gotten over it, though!

Alton is a talented, funny guy who was drafted in 1970 and who spent two years fighting in Viet Nam. I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but when I got older I realized how that affected my quiet, peaceable brother. It was never easy for him to talk about the experience. Most of his adult working life was spent as either an over-the-road truck driver or working on family farms. In 1997 he suffered a stroke, and while being examined an aneurysm was found on his brain, and they operated immediately to clip it. I'll never forget the date of the operation because it was the same day that Princess Diana died, August 31, 1997.

It took some time, but Alton recovered a lot of what we thought was going to be lost forever. He can care for his own personal needs, and most of the time his memory is as sharp as ever. But he cannot live alone. His balance is still not good, he is on a lot of medication, and he has suffered a few seizures since the operation. But basically he is still the same big brother who helped me learn to play guitar, and I am still "Little Thumb" to him. (When he counts off his sisters he starts with his left thumb for Dee, and when he gets to me, number six, he is on his right thumb, which happens to be smaller than his left one -- therefore, I am Little Thumb.) He can still get aggravated with his sisters and he especially loves to tease and torment Lois.

As I said, most of the time his memory is good, but once in a while he'll get a little confused. At least he isn't hallucinating anymore! A few weeks after he was able to leave the rehabilitation facility, he was sitting at my mother's kitchen table, where he could see the clothes dryer. One of my sisters walked by and he said loudly, "Humph!" Lois said, "What is it?" Alton said, "A little Frenchman just climbed into the dryer." Lois looked at him for several seconds, then walked to the dryer and opened the door and looked in. "Well," she said, "there's no one in there, now." "Well, I saw him climb in," Alton said. "How do you know he was a Frenchman?" she asked, unable to help herself. "Because he was speaking French!" he answered.

He has never had another hallucination, as far as I know, but to this day, he remembers that and will swear that he saw a little Frenchman climb into the dryer!

The thing that I miss the most, that he has not recovered, is his amazing musical talents. Almost all of us can play at least one instrument, and we all sing, but he could play anything with strings or keys. He was self taught, and simply amazing on the guitar. He played a Chet Atkins version of Under The Double Eagle that you'd swear was Chet himself playing. He still has the knowledge to play, but not the same dexterity. And although his guitar sits in his bedroom, he rarely picks it up. For some reason I don't really think he misses it, though; we're the ones who mourn for the days when all seven of us got together to sing to Alton's accompanying guitar. He actually seems very happy and content, and when his grandkids come to visit he's in heaven!

Growing up the only boy in a family of six girls could be thought to be a bad thing, but I think he was always pretty much waited on by the older girls. And he had plenty of male cousins to run around with, so that it wasn't just him and the older girls when they were young. My mother has always maintained that she raised seven individuals and that she loved them each for who they were and no one more than the other. She has certainly never given us any reason to disbelieve her. But how could she not have a special spot in her heart for her only son? During the months that he was in the hospital and during rehabilitation before he was allowed to move back home, she stayed with him practically day and night. Since I was the one who lived near Louisville, near the hospital and the rehab center where he was, she stayed with me for weeks at a time, and every day I would take her over to spend the day with Alton. She sat with him, talked with him, and went through all of his various recuperative therapies with him. Even when another of us was there to spend the day, or when we took turns spending the nights with him at the hospital, she was still there most of the time.

Well, I kind of went off on a little tangent there, didn't I?

Anyway, I have Alton stories I could tell, too, so I wanted to give him a proper introduction.

To be continued....