When my brother and I got to be old enough that we didn’t really need a babysitter, my parents used to arrange for the teenager next door to come and babysit us. I don’t think we would have presented a real danger to the house or each other, but I guess my parents wanted to be sure. Plus we loved this kid — JL — who used to come on occasional Friday or Saturday nights.

The thing I remember most was him sitting on a chair between our bedrooms and telling us stories about life at Reading High. I wish I could remember these stories but all I do remember is laughing so hard that my sides hurt. I remember my brother in the other room screaming with laughter. I remember that they were endless — some kid doing something in school that led him to the hall then to the parking lot then to the gym — and that we couldn’t here these stories enough times.

I thank JL for giving us a sense that all the craziness that was coming in adolescence, craziness we could already feel in the neighborhood around us, would be okay, maybe even funny. I thank him for sitting with us and telling these stories from high school so that we could relax a bit and understand that there was nothing to fear. I thank him for being so patient with kids who were younger and who didn’t have an older brother to tell us this stuff. Mostly, I just thank him for his kindness to my brother and I.

JL, I hope you are well.