Doug

When you're a kid, you always think that everyone else's house is the cool place to be.  Tony Roberson had a Nintendo, John Kalb had farm animals, Chet Reagan had cable TV, and Doug had an indoor basketball court.

Yes, I think Doug spent far more time at our house than we did in Hawkeye, but I sure loved going to Doug's house.  I have a lot of great memories from the time I spent at the Anderson farm.  Let me highlight a couple of them.

I remember asking for a radio alarm clock after spending the night with Doug and being absolutely fascinated with how cool it was to fall asleep with music on.  Yes, I have Doug to thank for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of radio alarm clocks.

I have a totally random memory of being upstairs at Doug's house and listening to records that were probably Brenda's.  I can distinctly remember listening to "I want you to want me" by Cheap Trick and thinking, "Wow, this is cool music."  I have no idea why I remember that so well.

Do you guys remember playing "dress up" at Doug's house?  Probably not (because you won't want to admit it) but when we visited there as a family there was a period when we would rummage through the closets upstairs, put on whatever we could find, and then go downstairs to "put on a show" until the adults got tired of it and told us to scram.

But when I think of Doug, usually the first thing I remember is that barn.  I find it ironic that Doug, who is arguably the LEAST athletic of the cousins, was the only person to have a personal indoor basketball court!  I just remember wishing all the time that we could go to their house with our roller-skates and play roller-skate basketball in the upper level of their barn.  Even now as I think about, I can't believe what a cool thing it was to have a basketball court up in the top of the barn!  We played that made up game with roller-skates where whoever got the ball would ride to the other end with the others giving chase and try to make a basket with the ball.  Then there was a scramble to get the rebound, and whoever came up with it took off for the other end to try to put it in the bucket.  We would go for hours and hours back and forth until one of the adults would come to get us for a meal.  What a blast!

I can also remember that I was always jealous of his artistic skills.  He was really good.  

I'm looking forward to seeing him on Independence Day!