Ralph Robert Wensinger

West Point, 1959

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Rosalyn Wensinger Sands on January 25, 2002:

REMEMBRANCES ABOUT MY BIG BROTHER, RALPH WENSINGER Growing up with my brother was full of laughter, fun and full of fights. The two of us were always getting into trouble at home. If we washed the car together, it always ended up in a water fight. Whoever had the hose had the advantage, so we would fight for its control. Sometimes we had water balloon fights or we would fill up buckets with cold water and wait for which one of us was the most unsuspecting to come around the corner of the garage. Lots of water in the yard meant there was mud to be made and slung at each other or stuffed down bathing suits. Of course, once covered from head to toe with mud, we had to hose it off. This started the whole cycle all over again for control of the hose. We had the usual pillow fights in the bedroom that would often end with feathers all over the place, or when we would leap from bed to bed and the mattress and springs would come crashing to the floor. Mom didn't like that type of roughhousing at all. We always tried to put everything back together before she returned home. We tried to limit our fights to when Mom was not around because all my screaming really upset her -- not because there was any danger -- it was because of the decibels. Some of the more interesting fights were quite colorful, or fragrant or just gross. My mother made the best homemade pie. One day Ralph and I decided to pick blackberries for one of Mom's world-class pies. The blackberries were so plentiful that in no time we had bucketsful. Of course that meant that we started eating them by the handsful, and then started throwing them at each other. We progressed by taking handsful and smooshing the berries into each other's face. When we finished, we had blackberries squashed into our hair, our ears and our pockets. Our hands, faces and clothes were all purple. When we came home and Mom saw us, she was so disgusted, but she made us a blackberry pie anyway. It took us a long time to de-purple our skin. Ralph and I never pre-planned our fights -- they were always spontaneous. One of the more interesting fights was our onion fight. One Fall, we looked at Mom's vegetable garden and noticed that the onions had gone to seed. We picked these long sword-like shoots with round tennis ball-sized seed heads on the tip and thought they would make great weapons. We started to fence and parry, but the weight of the heavy seed ball bent the shaft at right angles near our hands. What more fun could there be than whacking and chasing each other until the limp onion shoot turned into a wet slippery whip-like weapon. By then we were so covered with onion juice that it didn't matter if we rubbed the seed ball into each other's hair and faces, as was the usual ending to a fight. Only this time our eyes were red and burning and were tearing so badly that we couldn't see. We made our way to the back door, but Mom -- if we could have seen her, I am sure had that disgusted look on her face -- wouldn't let us in the house. I whimpered and tried to look pitiful, but Mom still wouldn't let us in. We reeked of onion juice and smelled so strongly that Mom made us hose off outside. A hose in our hands always meant a good water fight, but Ralph and I were in no mood -- it was too cold outside. The snail fight was pure grossness. It was a warm summer day and my brother and I were doing yard work. Throwing grass clippings at each other just wasn't fun enough. Ralph found some snails and stuffed them down the back of my bathing suit and then took the palm of his hand squashed them with a crunch against my skin. I wasn't able to function for a while because my back was so arched and contorted. I could only make spastic movements and couldn't even scream because I was so mortified and in complete disbelief that Ralph could do such a thing to me. Once I regained my composure, I gathered up some snails and could only throw them at him. He wouldn't let me near him. When I tried, he would straight-arm me by holding the top of my head while I leaned into him with my arms swinging and flailing. I was a teenager then, and I don't remember having any other fights since. I think Ralph knew that he pushed me to my limit on that one, and knew if he ever aggravated me like that again, I was at such an age that I could become dangerous. The fighting may have ended, but his unrelenting teasing was to continue. I loved him very much.

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