Netdahe and me

This is a picture of Netdahe, me and Henekis in the Freedom Old Home Day Parade in 1981.  I think that means Dahe was 4, I was 10 and Henekis was 1.  I've missed one, maybe 2 Old Home Day Parades in my life, when I was in Wyoming.  I don't think my cousins have missed any.  In the background, on the right side of the picture, you can see Champ.  He's wearing a yellow shirt.  I believe that's our gram on the other side of the road, in a white sweater with her back to us.  Isn't Henekis adorable?  She still is.

This is another shot of Netdahe and me in the parade.  Our Aunt Deb (who is married to Tommy and is therefore the daughter-in-law of Champ) is a real juggler and was really in to clowns back in the 80's, so she did our make up and taught us to juggle a little bit and we were clowns!  It was super fun.  Notice that Dahe is juggling one ball.  And look at his socks!

And here's Dahe and me when we were even littler, at camp.  I have a funny memory that sticks with me about Netdahe when we were kids. Somewhere between the years of this photo and the ones above, I had this stuffed Snoopy doll that I loved very much.  You could buy special outfits for it.  My daughter, Harper, has inherited Snoopy, but he only has his blue footie jammies; I don't know what happened to his other outfits, like the baseball suit.  Anyway, Dahe always wanted to play with my Snoopy, but I wasn't really interested in sharing him.  One day at Camp, I look out the window and see Dahe walking around the yard with a small suitcase.  Sticking out of the closed suitcase was a little Snoopy foot!  Busted!

And here is Dahe and me last month after running the Vermont City Marathon.  It was Dahe's first and my third.  We ran the first half together and then Netdahe cruised on ahead.  It was a lot of fun and neat to have my little cousin calling me periodically to ask me running and training questions.  If you know Dahe, you know that he has a lot of energy.  He's not going to run Montreal with me in September because he is building his house.  He's pretty much building it by himself and that won't allow much time for training runs.  I'm pretty sure he basically dug the foundation himself with a shovel.  That's the kind of guy Dahe is.  He's really cool and someone I admire and love to spend time with.  He swears a lot.  I figure having someone like Dahe around is good for my kids, who otherwise have a pretty sheltered life.  My cousins help them have what I call "edge".  

Here's something ironic about this picture:  The dog belongs to the people we home exchange with in Burlington.  His name is Champ!

There's an old family story about Netdahe and Henekis playing and realizing that their cousin Zoe didn't have any brothers or sisters.  They thought that was a real shame and decided they would be my brother and sister.  Isn't that sweet?  I still think of them that way and I'm grateful that they let me pretend they're my siblings.