For his whole life, Dad was Joel’s little brother. While they were attending school, Joel had a contract with the weekly magazine “Liberty” to deliver the product and collect the subscription price. However, it was often Dad who had to do this work. Joel, who was busy with other things, got the pay. The pouch for collecting was among the things that Dad – not Joel – left behind at his death. (See photo below.)

If the elder Bloomfields had promised Dad that he could use the family car, that promise was quickly retracted when Joel announced that he was coming home. “Joel needs the car,” was, in their parent’s eyes, all the explanation necessary.

Among my playthings were a big metal mail truck that you could really steer, a rather large cloth-covered pig on wheels and a small wooden chair. Dad, Joel and sister Frances had played with these toys in their childhood. Dad remembered having an operating, toy steam engine that somehow had gotten lost. Years after I had stopped playing with these toys, Joel told Dad that he wanted to have the mail truck. He wanted it for himself, not for his children or grandchildren. Dad gave it to him. A few years later, Joel also wanted the pig. Dad didn’t want to give it to him and Joel kept badgering Dad about it until he got what he wanted. Only the little red chair remained in Dad’s possession. “It has my name under the seat,” Joel pointed out. “It’s mine.” It wasn’t really his, he had simply written his name on the chair as a child. Dad had no intention of handing over this third toy to his older brother. Joel kept up his verbal barrage. For years! Finally, in order to shut him up and have his peace, Dad gave Joel the chair, too.

Dad could be very, very stubborn. Joel was more stubborn. Dad didn’t like conflict. Joel reveled in producing it. Dad often felt inferior. Joel acted self-assured and arrogant. Joel and Frances had gone to college and gotten degrees. Dad had left high school early to enlist in the army and graduated after being discharged. Then he began working for the Postal Service. Although he had had no interest in going to college, Dad felt inferior because he had never studied.

The Bloomfields thought having a son and heir was important. Their first child, Frances, who had given birth to two daughters, was no longer a Bloomfield and couldn’t pass on the family name. Before I was born, Joel and his wife Arlene had already had a daughter.. When Arlene got pregnant a few months after Mother, both brothers hoped they would provide the first boy grandchild. This, however, was the only brotherly duel that Dad won! Arlene gave birth to a girl about five months after my birth, assuring my “standing” in the family tree. Dad and my grandparents called me “The Crown Prince” and often treated me accordingly.

Dad was naive in dealing with his brother and was often surprised about the way encounters ended. After Joel had won $1,000 at a casino, he stopped to see Dad. Joel proudly fanned out the 10 hundred dollar bills and suggested that the two of them go out to lunch together. Dad assumed, on the basis of Joel’s having won, that he would be buying him lunch. However, when they asked for the check, Joel said, “Separate checks please.” When Dad later angrily recounted the story to me on the phone, I knew from the beginning how the tale would end and could almost hear Joel saying, “Gotcha!” I was disappointed, in a way, that Dad had not seen it coming.

I once asked Dad why he kept up his relationship with Joel. Every time they got together there were tensions and discussions afterwards Dad would be upset. Why didn’t he just stop seeing him? Dad couldn’t, because Joel was his brother. You don’t break off relations with your family. Dad always acted on his principles even when it hurt.