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Every kid deserves a big brother. My sister was lucky. She had me. My closest big brother was my father’s youngest brother Pete. He was a great substitute. Uncle Pete came to live with us while an undergraduate at Furman University. My father loaned him the cost of tuition because their widowed mother couldn’t do it. Brothers looked out for each other. Pete was 18 years older but close enough for a kid who needed a big brother.

Pete was a big guy with the kind of muscles you develop lifting and delivering heavy couches, beds and refrigerators. When he wasn’t in class at Furman he was painting the rooms in our new house and enlarging the basement. As school was on summer break, I got to be his assistant and slept at the house with him before the rest of the family moved in. We arose at first light before the stifling South Carolina summer heat melted our wills. We cooked eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast, and downed the eggs with generous squirts of catsup. Pete let me have a half cup of coffee loaded with sugar and milk. It made me feel grown up.

We would dig in the basement, loading a wheelbarrow with dirt. I rolled out the dirt and dumped it in the back where my mother intended to create a flower garden. By lunch time, we would make BLTs with leftover bacon from breakfast, sliced fresh tomatoes and lettuce on white bread. In the afternoon, with two electric fans whirring, we painted upstairs rooms. Pete taught me how to tape woodwork and around windows. I painted from the floor as high as I could reach. He finished the walls above that. We were a team. In the evening, we listened to the radio and read Superman comic books. We were asleep by 9 pm since we needed to be up the next morning by 5 am.

One Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch at my grandparents’ home, I stole one of Pete’s cigars and slipped down to the woods behind the house. Smoking cigars seemed a manly thing to do. I had watched Pete bite the tip off cigars, light up and draw in the smoke. In the woods, I sat under the cool canopy of the trees and tried to do exactly what he did. The cigar had a strange taste and after a few puffs a surprising sensation, I began to feel nauseated, then seriously ill. I snuffed out the cigar lay there under the trees and closed my eyes. My head was doing the back stroke. After a dozen laps, I tried to get to my feet but couldn’t stand. I don’t know how long I lay thee, maybe a lifetime, praying for instant death. Weak but able to stand, I struggled home.

When Pete realized a cigar was missing, he knew who the culprit was. “Well,” he said, “did you enjoy it?” “What do you mean?” I asked, pretending ignorance and innocence. “The first one I smoked,” he said, “made me sick as a dog. I should have quit.” “I don’t think I’ll try another one,” I confessed, “This cured me.” I tried one years later. It didn’t taste any better than the first one. Without saying a word, Pete taught me a valuable lesson in making choices. Next: Honor thy father.

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