My brother is getting married in six weeks. Because of the kind of wedding No and KT are having, the gifts requested are memories.

My earliest memory of No is him standing next to me while the gardener was lecturing us about shaking the olive tree. We were in Grasse, so it was 1972 or '73; the lecture must have been in French, but in my memory, which doesn't have subtitles, it was in English.

Ne secouez pas l'olivier!

Post France, I remember standing at the top of the stairs with him when Kaiser sent a doctor to the house (!) because we were so sick with chicken pox. There are a few of things that don't make sense about this memory but Mom confirms the house call.

For the next few weeks I will be mining for pre-high school memories that don't make him look bad. I am the older sister, after all, and mostly what I remember are times when we were fighting. Mostly I have a sense of No in my life rather than specific memories. I plan to ask around other people I know what they remember doing with their siblings to see if anything jogs loose.