I still remember the day my older brother Johnny got to watch me. Our parents were going to our cousins' wedding. They tried to get our older brother to stay home and keep an eye on the two of us, but he had to work that night. Our father was not happy and told her. "Can we trust him to watch Richard?"

Our mother had waited until the last minute to find a sitter. Well, it came down to there was no one else, so Johnny got the job by default and no doubt there was a lot of reservation on mom and dad's part.

Johnny was fourteen, and I was nine. He had a slightly bad track record watching me. Nothing super serious unless you count the time, he had me make him a fried baloney sandwich. I slipped off the stool I was using to see the burner and my right hand touched the old-style electric burner. I burned my hand so badly he had to call our aunt, a nurse, for help. Then there was the time he made me go to bed, so he could go outside with his friends and accidentally locked himself out. He could not wake me up and to my parent's surprise there he was on the porch when they came home. Then there was the time he played catch in the house and accidentally broke our bedroom window. He told me to tell our mom and dad it was me that did it. Our father should have been a cop. By the time he got done interrogating us, I cracked and told the truth. Johnny got a few smacks on the butt by dad that night.

Before leaving, our mom gave Johnny money to buy us each a Pepsi and a snack from the neighborhood store. She told me to behave and stay in the house until Johnny came home. Mom gave us each a warning to behave and pleaded with Johnny not to do anything stupid. Of course, he said he would be good. Naturally, I knew in the back of my mom's mind she saw all the things he had done in the past.

With that, they left, and Johnny took off on his bike.

I kept watch through the living room window for my brother. Then he appeared, riding down our street with a large paper bag resting atop of his bicycle handlebars. I ran out the side door to meet him.

As soon as he stopped and lifted the bag off his handlebars. Before I could grab it from him, the bottom split open and one of the Pepsi bottles fell and shattered into pieces.

Johnny, always the quick thinker, lost no time by saying.

"Isn't that a shame your bottle broke?"

Now what was I going to drink? Milk? No way, Orange Juice? No, Tang? I guess it was going to be Tang.

Here's the part of the story I want to leave you with. Johnny shared his Pepsi with me that night. You see, Johnny could not have been a better brother. Yes, he gave mom and dad a few gray hairs, but so did I. He has always been there for me and still is.

Even though we are both in our sixties, that story is one we still talk about.