Last summer, my parents decided to save money by not spending money on summer camps, so that left my rambunctious younger brother and me at home. I had to give up looking for a job as well as going out with my friends every week to watch my little brother. I had to balance my time between doing summer English assignments and helping my unruly brother with his reading. I needed to monitor him so that he was not completely occupied with Lego Batman or Regular Show. My responsibilities as a big brother demanded that I had to be the parent until my mother came home in the late afternoon.

   I had helped during the year and my brother was usually cooperative because we both had to be at school around the same time. It was different in the summer however, because there was no school and we were basically on our own. As a replacement for vapid forms of entertainment, I had to find multiple ways to make fun meaningful for him with only the resources of the bookshelf, the sports box, or simply what we found under the bed.

   When my older brothers were still at home, they used to play a WWII strategy board game called Axis and Allies. They eventually taught it to me and my younger brother and we both became obsessed with it. The game was so perfectly designed that it instilled an extreme urge to win in my brothers and I. In the game, you could play as the Allied or Axis powers and through your own military judgment, possibly change the course of history. When we weren’t playing, we started to build model an F-15 fighter and B-52 bomber that I had been unable to finish with my own father. My brothers and I have all been engrossed by history since we were young, our desire to gain more and more knowledge particularly about the military fueled our passion for the game and for building models. Over the summer, my younger brother and I along with a couple of my own friends repeatedly played different versions of the game, thereby increasing our desire to play it whenever we could. By the end of the summer, I was surprised that my brother could now accurately point out European countries on the game’s map and he could identify parts of airplanes, but more importantly, he caught the spark that my dad and older brothers had ignited in me for history.

   Another activity we did was practice playing lacrosse, a sport that the two of us had recently picked up. Once or twice a week I would take him down to the local elementary school and practice “wall ball” or throwing the lacrosse ball against a backboard to perfect technique and timing. My brother was quite clumsy with the way he handles his stick, but because we both had fun playing together, he did not resist correcting the same mistakes of hand positioning and footwork I first encountered when I began playing the sport. Through increased interest in the sport, my brother is now paying more attention to lacrosse on T.V. and even taking his stick with him to parties to play with other kids. I felt accomplished in the fact that I had introduced something entirely new to my brother and he fell in love with it.

   My success in teaching my younger brother has given me confidence in my skills as a mentor. During my senior year, I am participating in a Community Based Service Learning Project (CBSL) that requires me to go out into the community and make a difference in peoples lives. As a tutor for young children at my local library, I have already had to deal with situations similar to the ones I encountered while looking after my younger brother. They include trying to keep the energetic children on task and help get their work done. I apply the lessons I have learned about taking responsibility, and demonstrating maturity that I learned while looking after my brother. The subject I wish to study in college, economics will require the same willingness to sacrifice some pleasures and to take responsibility for learning that I have learned over the past couple of years. As I look forward to college, I realize that my experiences have given me the ability to successfully tackle any challenge that I will face.