Remembering My Brother, Randy

It’s sad how we so often let everyday events obscure our past. I received an email message from one of my brother’s crewmates that April 26 was the 37th anniversary of Randolph Leonard Affield’s death in a plane crash, bodies lost at sea. I knew that but had forgotten.
In our family of nine children alliances formed between siblings. Randy and I had the same interests and were a few years apart in age.
As I work on the family memoir I recall small details–for example, we children slept in the unheated upstairs of the old farmhouse. After a supper of bean stew and white bread it was off to bed. The gas built up until I would cut a silent one then spit into the air. Randy would quickly pull the covers over his head. A few moments later he’d come out, gasping for air and swinging at me in the dark.
And in this spring time I recall us splashing after frogs and picking Mayflowers. Rest in Peace, Brother