My Big Brother

My brother was eighteen years older than me. Born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1941, he was a senior in high school when I was born in 1959. I grew up with stories from Bob's childhood - which were essentially the stories of the early years of my parent's marriage. Stories, captured in black and white photographs of a life on the road. My father was a traveling city directory salesman with RL Polk and Company.


Bob, or Robin, as he was called then, was their first born. A fictitious anniversary date concealed the true circumstances around his conception. This secret went to the grave with my father, uncovered only by a series of innocent questions posed by me to my mother as I put together a "Grandmother Remembers" book for my own children. The truth surrounding my parent's marriage and Bob's birth only added to the rebellious image of my mother and the colorful family mythology that accompanied my father's rags to riches story.

The early photographs of Robin tell a story of an only child whose parents traveled throughout the southeastern United States, my father's sales territory, setting up housekeeping in apartments for mere weeks until the directory sales season closed and they moved on to the next town.




One photograph that always stood out to me was of my mother and father in Virginia Beach. In the photograph, Dad is wearing a fedora, Mother a tailored suit. Dad is holding Robin. It is December 7th, 1941.

During the war years, when my father was overseas serving in Salisbury, England, Mother and Robin lived in a trailer. They returned to Cincinnati to be near family. Eventually, the little family settled in New Orleans, Louisiana in a trailer park when Robin was school age.

Bob used to laugh at the sparsely decorated Christmas trees from his childhood captured in the photographs.


I always thought that Bob had the look of a little French boy in the photographs. Wide eyed in his short suits, his legs starkly white against the dark shoes and socks. It had to have been a lonely life for a little boy though he never said it was. In fact, I don't remember Bob ever complaining about his early childhood at all.

In 1949, the family moved to Southern California, to Flower Street in Anaheim, to one of the first post-war suburban neighborhoods, to start their own directory business. They sent Robin, now called Robby, off to military boarding school - blocks away from home.



This detail is one I never fully understood, except in light of the demands my parents must have felt from starting up a new business. Or perhaps they sent him to what they believed to be the best school available. In any case, the portrait of my brother as a lonely, adolescent boy always tugged at my heart.

At twelve, Robby became a big brother for the first time. Jamie Reid was born in 1953.




The family moved off of Flower Street to a 1950's ranch-style house on Resh Place, built a swimming pool, den, and bar.


I grew up with home movies of pool parties and fun.

Tragedy befell the family in 1957, when Jamie died from a botched tonsillectomy. Robby was fifteen.
Stories of my mother throwing herself across Jamie's coffin and driving with his sweater in the back seat of the car only reinforced the image I had of my brother Bob's lonely life - now as the surviving sibling.

At Mater Dei High School, he wore horned rimmed glasses. He wrote for the Anaheim Bulletin Sports page covering high school sports. He developed a love for the opera. He met his future wife, Peggy. I was born his senior year. By then, he was called Robby only by aunts, uncles, and cousins. My father called him "son." I only knew my brother as Bob.


My earliest memories of Bob were those of a baby sister being happily tossed around by my big brother. He tickled me, teased me, and kissed me. He made monster sounds and grabbed me while we watched spooky movies. When Bob joined the National Guard, we visited him on trips to Fort Ord in northern California.




I adored him and developed crushes on the fraternity brothers he'd bring home from Theta Chi at USC.
And I was jealous of Peggy.

When I was six years old, Bob and Peggy married. I had a loose front tooth that my mother would not let me push with my tongue so it would not fall out before the wedding. I was the flower girl in a velvet, avocado green dress.


After a brief time in an apartment and the birth of my first nephew, Rob III in 1966, Bob and Peggy moved eight houses away from us on Resh Street.
Bob worked for the family business. In 1968, my second nephew, Matthew Christian was born. I loved being at their house. So close in age, my nephews were like brothers to me.



Peggy played games, talked to me like I was a grown up, let me climb trees in her back yard, and cut sandwiches into the shape of sail boats. It was magical. Where Peggy's prominence in my life took over, my brother grew more distant. More mysterious.

This time in my life was a confusing one. The adults whispered at the bar in the den. I was shooed to bed by my mother who seemed particularly cross.

In one short -tempered outburst she scolded me in the same breath as she blurted out that Bob and Peggy were separated - "Don't you know that?"

I did not. Nor did I want to believe it. I snuck into Bob and Peggy's bedroom and opened their closet. There were no men's clothes. I remember being heart broken and asking Peggy if she would still be my sister-in-law. She assured me that she would.

Bob moved to Laguna Beach with Lenny.


Peggy and the boys remained on Resh Street. Bob was always present for all the family gatherings - birthdays, Christmas Eve. He normally came to our house for Christmas dinner without Peggy or the boys. He never stayed long enough and Christmases were always fraught with tension. My parents fought. There was an unspoken sadness. It seemed to weigh heaviest on my father.

A burden fell to my brother on August 17, 1981 when our father dropped dead of a heart attack while jogging to the office. Bob was just arriving to tell Dad about his trip to Roanoke, when he discovered him flat on his back just inside his office door. He delivered the devastating news to my mother and me and then Bob took over the family business and assumed his role as head of the Luskey family. Nine months after my father's death, Bob walked me down the aisle to be married.



Bob remained one of my greatest cheerleaders. As my theatrical talents emerged, he delighted in my performances. My room was full of clever, expensive presents - a brass bed for my role as Molly Brown, an etching of Sarah Bernhardt, and beautiful music boxes that played familiar tunes from the musicals I loved.

Bob shopped in the quaint shops of Laguna Beach. Our houses were full of local artisans' work, funky tie died scarves, and cut- crystal jewelry. We were awash in leather bags and luggage from the shop he and Lenny opened in Laguna - named for the aria in Madama Butterfly - Un Bel Di.

Easter brunches, fancy dinners, trips to the theatre and the opera followed by late night, expensive suppers - Bob's joie de vivre enlivened our existence.
A big bellowing laugh, quick wit, and sharply critical opinions emanated from any table he hosted. He rose to great heights as a directory publisher, industry leader, and sales trainer. It was during this time, shortly after my marriage, that I became Bob's collaborator and business partner of sorts. I joined the family business to help him. We worked together on developing a sales training video series that was widely adopted by independent and utility yellow page companies alike. He mentored me. Trusted me. Depended on me.


He loved taking us all to the opera . Peggy, the boys, Mother, Lenny, and me - where we would dutifully stand in the lobby while he told us the complicated plot lines of the elaborate stories. He flew to New York regularly during opera season to attend the Met and traveled to Europe on the QEII. My brother looked handsome in a tux and demonstrated the manners and grace of a cultured gentleman. Custom-tailored suits to fit his square build completed the picture of a successful executive and patron of the arts.


Bob was extravagant. The extravagance caught up with us all as the yellow page industry began to falter and the economy began to plunge in the late 1980' s.

Just as the AIDS epidemic began to take its devastating toll on the gay community.

(Aria-A Sister's Journey With AIDS continued in next post- Brotherly Love)