My friend Doug and his family were odd even by the standards of trailer park folk. His dad was a police officer in town and he had an older sister and two older brothers. His older sister was two years older than us and had that insufferable affect of older sisters who sigh in condescension at little brothers and proclaim them to be 'so immature'. We hated her and would try to bother her whenever we could. She would tell us how we didn't understand what was cool because we were only in first grade and she was in third.
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| Perfect for making all sorts of martial weapons. |
His brothers were older than her and didn't seem to have any friends besides each other. They would spend countless hours making armor and weapons out of any available material. They once made a sword, mace and breastplates from building toys called Construx and then had me and Doug judge their duel as they smashed their creations back to bits. I had the distinct impression that these were two of the most happening dudes in the world. I was, of course, wrong. The world at large, and women in particular, have a terrible track record at appreciating the finer points of nerding.
Their family was close knit and I was usually the only friend over at the house. I slept over a couple of times and Doug, his two brothers and I would all sleep on the floor in the living room. We would go to sleep talking about what all the best stuff was, it was ninja stuff. In the morning they would have pancakes, eggs and bacon. Which was not that weird, but the whole family would take turns pouring so much syrup over their plates until it was breakfast food and syrup soup. I thought that was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. In my house, syrup went on pancakes and all other uses seemed dangerously deviant.
Doug was my best friend for a couple of years until he moved when his dad got a better paying job in a bigger city. He came back to visit once after we had moved out of the trailer park and across town. I was twelve and Doug and his family seemed tragically nerdy and the visit was a stilted reunion between people who knew each other in a previous life and now find themselves with less in common than strangers.
