My brother Dan, is mentally retarded. Sometime when my mom was pregnant with him, through no fault of hers, his brain was denied oxygen long enough to cause brain damage. We don't know if it was during pregnancy or during labor and delivery, or what caused it. My mom realized it when he was a little baby and she kept seeing this blank stare in his eyes. He still has that blank stare to this day and he's 54 years old. His development was slow and not like that of other babies. My mom had him tested and those who tested him gave her the news she had suspected, that there was something wrong in his brain.She and dad did everything they could to help him. They got him specialists. He was slightly cross-eyed, so they had one eye operated on and then the other. They had him go to a speech therapist. It took him a long time to learn how to talk. The speech therapist recommended that my parents get him this doll that was on the market at the time called 'Little Miss Echo.' It had a tape recorder in it and you could record your voice and have it talk in your voice. That proved to be a big help to Dan and his speaking. He also liked an alligator puppet he had that he called 'Creamus.' I don't know where he got the name, but one day, he was talking up a storm, with 'Creamus', asking him if he tipped something over or if he spilled something or other such things.
It's funny to watch an old commercial for 'Little Miss Echo' because Dan was totally different with this tape recorder doll.The ad shows some little girl playing school with the doll and singing with her recorded voice singing through the doll. Dan was all boy and did not play with the doll like a girl would. He mostly liked to punch her forehead in and watch the punch mark go away as the rubber-like material would take the shape of the forehead back. He made all kinds of interesting noises and played them back. Dan would pretend that she got into all kinds of trouble, trouble that he might have thought about getting into, but didn't dare. He just called her 'Echo' and would have my dad and I draw cartoons of her getting into all kinds of trouble. The kind of humor he understands is slapstick, where stuff spills or gets knocked over, Laurel and Hardy type of humor. Most of the cartoons would be of Echo tipping over stuff like the console stereo, appliances, etc. thus the cartoons were called 'Tippys' (sic). For his birthdays, he always wanted me to make him 'tippy books' that were little hand-made comic books of Echo tipping over stuff and getting into trouble. He would also have me tell him 'Bad Stuff Stories' where Echo got into trouble for knocking over stuff or not thinking and making a mess of things. To this day, he requests that I type him a 'Bad Stuff Story' for Christmas and for his birthday. The doll itself fell apart years ago, but the character still remains in his imagination.
Little Miss Echo
Growing up with Dan had its ups and downs, like with any other sibling, only Dan was not like any other sibling. Dan was my only sibling. I didn't know what it was like to have a "normal" sibling. He's two years younger than I am. I can remember when he was a baby. I can remember all of the trouble my parents had potty training him. It was harder for him than with most kids and he didn't learn it until he was around 4 or something like that. When we were growing up together, he couldn't play board games or card games, he didn't understand them or the rules. He also wasn't interested in them and therefore didn't try to understand them. I used to envy other kids who had siblings that could play games with them. I would draw pictures for Dan on this large chalkboard we had in the basement. We had a large basement. My dad had fixed-up part of the basement and made it into a cool playroom. It was a great place to play in on a hot day. Anyway, about the only way I could really play with him would be to draw pictures for him and he loved that.
Dan wasn't interested in things that a lot of other kids were interested in. He didn't like sports and didn't understand them. He didn't understand a lot of cartoons and TV shows unless they involved slapstick humor. He didn't play with other kids, he was in his own little world. He was interested in things like appliances, record players, vacuum cleaners and stuff like that. He was also fascinated with furnaces. I remember once, mom took us to a ballet production of the 'Nutcracker Suite' at Veterans Memorial theater in Columbus, Ohio. I remember seeing the ballerinas dance on stage with fake snow falling and thought it was beautiful and really cool. Dan kept having mom take him to the restroom. He didn't have to go, he was bored with the ballet and wanted to look at the heat registers and the plumbing. It made my mom so frustrated.
Dan was mostly interested in appliances like washing machines. He still likes to watch the washing machine run. We recently got a high efficiency top load washer with a clear lid and Dan loves to watch it spin. He liked and still likes mixers and like to watch them mix up cake batter. When he got old enough to run the mixer himself, he liked to try different cake mixes so see how the cake would taste.
He also loved records and loved to watch them spin and listen to music on record players and stereos. He didn't care who the musical artist was, he'd listen to almost anything. When he went over to other peoples' houses, he'd want to see their Hi-Fi right away. The thing he remembers most about the church we went to when we were little was a Hi-Fi they had in the lounge where they held his Sunday school class. I remember one year when we went trick-or-treating on Halloween, he didn't care about getting candy, he wanted to go into other peoples' houses to see their record player. Mom and dad had to teach him proper manners so he wouldn't just barge in to somebody's house to look at their record player and when we visited, he had to ask nicely and say 'please' and 'thank you.' Mom and dad made sure Dan learned good manners.
He was also fascinated with vacuum cleaners and cement mixers. He loved to watch the thing that holds the cement on a cement mixer turn and the faster it turned, the more he liked it. When we were riding in the car, Dan would see a cement mixer and would exclaim, "A cement mixer!" like it was something unusual and special. Mom and dad had an old Kirby vacuum cleaner that he loved to run. He also liked to play around with it when he was a teenager. He's still fascinated with vacuum cleaners and recently was delighted when one of Stacy's friends was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners and wanted to demonstrate a new Kirby vacuum cleaner at our house one day and he got to watch the demonstration.
Old Sunbeam Mixmaster like the one my mom had that Dan was fascinated with
Dan has always had a fascination with old record players like this one
Like the old Kirby vacuum cleaner that my parents had that Dan was fascinated with.
He also loved to start the washer. He was just a little kid, but was fascinated with the washer and so mom would take him to the basement and let him turn the button to start the washing machine. He loved to watch repairmen come and fix appliances that had to be fixed. We had to make sure he didn't get in the repairman's way. One time the pump went out and Dan got to keep the old pump as a souvenir. One time the agitator cracked and Dan got to keep the old agitator. One time when Dan was little, mom went to check on him after he had gone to bed and Dan had taken the old agitator to bed with him like a kid would take a stuffed animal to bed with him. Mom had to re-do his bed and tell him to leave the agitator out of the bed.
One year, we got a washing machine that had an agitator that went up and down rather than back and forth and the lid had a window in it. Dan was thrilled that he got to watch the washer run through that little window. I guess that design of agitator didn't work out because years later after that washer gave out, mom and dad bought a washer with an agitator that goes back and forth. Dan didn't care, he liked either one.
Dan also had a fascination with the dishwasher. In the early 1960's, my mom developed a severe skin allergy to dish detergent. This was in the days when most houses didn't have a dishwasher. People washed and dried their dishes by hand. Ugh. Anyway, the doctor had told mom that she couldn't wash dishes if she wanted the rash on her hands to clear up, that dad would have to do the dishes. Dad was not about to do the dishes, so one Saturday, we drove to someplace and dad bought a portable dishwasher.It got delivered to our house the following week. It was a big white thing on wheels and every night, mom would wheel it up to the sink, load the dishes in it, hook the hose up to the faucet and run the dishwasher. It would take water from the faucet and drain it out into the sink .Dan would love to watch it run. When he got older, he learned how to load and run the dishwasher. To this day, he loads and runs the built-in dishwasher in our house every day.
The damage in Dan's brain is in the area involving judgement. He cannot make good judgement, to this day, he is much better at repetitive things and shouldn't be put in a position to require judgement. Also, part of his brain dealing with sight is damaged. He can see alright, with glasses. It's not his eyes, but how his brain perceives what he sees that's affected. He always had trouble catching a ball because when you throw it to him, it doesn't look right to him and he would sometimes run away so the ball wouldn't hit him. He doesn't see the same way we do, but he sees, with his glasses, well enough to get around and to live his daily life. Because of the damage to his brain, he should never, ever drive a car. He shouldn't even ride a bicycle. He has to rely on public transportation. When he was an adult and came to live with us, he was really upset when the C-Cart took away their routes in our neighborhood in McKinney a couple of years ago because they took away what little independence he had.
When he was little, my parents got him one of those push-pedal cars like you'd see in the 1960's. He couldn't figure out how to make it go. He couldn't put it together in his brain to push the pedals back and forth to propel it forward.We tried to show him but it was to no avail. He also couldn't figure out how to make a tricycle go even though we tried to show him this too.
A push pedal car similar to what Dan had only his was green
When Dan would get frustrated, or if mom got after for something he shouldn't have done, he would scream. He would make little noises he called screams about something he wasn't real happy about. Sometimes the noises weren't so little, sometimes they were blood curdling screams. When he was 5 years old and had a high-pitched voice, it was funny sometimes. He even had names for his different screams. There was the 'Stew Scream' for when my mom made stew. He didn't like stew. There was his 'Grandma's Apartment Scream' and his 'Store Scream' when we'd drive past a store that he wanted to go in and get something. There was the 'Black Scream' which was loud and happened when mom would yell at him for something. Then there was the queen mother of all screams, the 'Silver Scream.' This scream usually happened when mom was trying to clean boogers out of his nose. He didn't like his nose messed with, but was unable to clean it properly. It could be heard in the back yard, especially when the windows were open. Often, the whole neighborhood knew when Dan was getting his nose cleaned out. This scream was a long, extended scream and he got in big trouble for letting a 'Silver Scream' loose. Sometimes mom would get after him for something and Dan would say, "What if I scream?" Mom would say, "You better not scream!" Dan would say, "What if I do?" Mom would say, "You'll get in big trouble if you scream!" This would go on and on until mom had enough and put a stop to it.
Dan had a lot of nervous energy when he was little. He didn't know what to do with it all. One of the things he did was to walk around the house shaking a rag. He'd run it over counter top, credenzas and other pieces of furniture. He'd make little shushing noises while running the rag around. We called it 'shaking.' Some of my friends who would come over to visit thought he was dusting the furniture. He had special 'shakers' (various rags and small strings) that he carried with him everywhere like a kid would a stuffed animal. He would switch 'shakers' every now and then. My grandma didn't like him doing it for too long when he was at her apartment and didn't like him doing it when she had company over. She'd give Dan a string which he would keep on one of her door knobs. When we visited her apartment, he would get a certain amount of time that he was allowed to 'shake' then he had to put his string up and do something else. One time grandma took him to a five and dime store near where she lived and bought him a scrapbook. She wanted him to do something "worthwhile" rather than 'shaking.' She gave him some magazines and told him to cut out pretty pictures and paste them in the scrapbook. Dan pasted pictures of washers, record players and other appliances and grandma wasn't real thrilled with his choice of art.
This is just a little bit of what growing up with Dan and living with him is like. This is part of a series of blogs that I am writing about him.
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