My family and the neighbors spent months digging a hole in the backyard. First, we were digging to China. Who hasn't tried that? Then, we got tired of digging and decided to play with action figures, star wars and G.I. Joe and such. We spent months playing in that gigantic hole. We got tired of it and left it there. Later, Chris decided that it would make a perfect house for his box turtles. We were fortunate enough to grow up in the country, and before long, Chris had many specimans for his turtle house. He eventually put up plywood as walls, and kept those turtles for years.

My mother was a very good seemstress. One Christmas she spent weeks making a Batman and Robin costume. Mark was Batman, and of course, Chris was his Robin. On Christmas, and for months afterward, we shared our days and nights with our very own in-house Batman and Robin. I can still see them in my mind to this day.

My family was playing hide and seek. Mom had a long coat rack hanging on the wall in the utility room. I decided that would be a perfect place for Chris to hide, so I lifted him up, hung him on a peg, and threw a coat over him. He was so small that he was perfectly hidden. It was such a good hiding place that no one found him. I left him hanging there until he figured out that the game was over and started screaming to be let down.

Now I'm going to tell on Chris:

June 23, 1983: I was living in Bedias and went to the store to buy a Huntsville Item newspaper. On the front page was a story of the bounty the robber had nabbed at Academy Surplus. The shocker was that the robber was my brother Chris. The picture with the story was three table full of weapons. My immediate thought was of my father, whose birthday was the date of the paper. Oh my...

I felt somewhat responsible for Chris's fall from grace. He had just spent time at my house and was telling me of his dream to go to Mexico. I flipped out and tried to tell him horror stories of being caught doing something illegal and ending up in some dark, horrible prison. I felt that I had caused him to take precautions for his safety by robbing the Academy Surplus store.

Chris's sentence was 10 years probation. Being young and stupid, after 4 months, he soon grew weary of the probabtion gig. He fled state lines, ended up in California, and using the alias A.J. Sims. It was 6 years before he got tired of being on the run and came back home.

When Mom was pregnant with Chris, she told me that if the baby was a girl, I could name it. I had the name Debbie Lynn picked out, and was looking forward to using it. I was in first grade, and over the intercom they announced that I now had a baby brother. What? Wait! How can that be? What about Debbie Lynn?

My mother had a friend who gave birth around the same time, only she had a girl. She came over to visit, and I begged to let us trade Chris for her baby girl. Mom vetoed that idea, and I was stuck with the realization that I now had ANOTHER baby brother. I'm so glad Mom didn't let the trade happen. Chris blessed my life in more ways than he will ever know.

I came home from a date in 1973 and found my family up watching "Psycho" on TV. Well, most of them were watching. Mark and Chris were on the floor asleep in front of the TV. At the end, when they turned his mumified mother around in that chair, my brothers woke up. The moment they woke they were facing the TV and that mummy was the first thing they saw. They both screamed and starting crawfishing backwards. As soon as they did this, it startled Dana,Tony, and I so badly that we screamed too. That night, my parents had a 15, 14, 13, 10, and 9 year old on their bedroom floor. One of my favorite memories.

None of my brothers liked onions. Mom made onion rings for dinner one night. I was sitting next to Chris as he bit into one. The onion in the ring didn't break with his bite, and the whole thing slithered onto his lip and chin. The look on his face was priceless when he realized what it was. I just looked at him and retorted "What did you think was in an onion ring?" and laughed.

Chris was the "Dr. Doolittle" of the Guidry family. He got along with all of nature, animals were the children Chris never had. In late 1974, he picked up a baby rattler and got bit as he released it. That snake packed more punch than its adult counterpart. Chris stayed a week in the hospital, and for a time, we thought he might lose his arm. I can still see his hand today, it was swollen like a blown up hospital glove. He didn't lose his finger or his arm, and never lost his love for snakes. He continued raising them until the day that he passed.