With the Coronavirus scare going around right now, I feel like I should have some kind of story to tell you about Jordan and being sick. But the truth of the matter is, I don't remember him getting sick a whole lot.
I'm sure he did, just as much as any other kid. But my memories of being sick are almost always me, because I was (and still am) a huge hypochondriac, terrified of every illness.
What I do remember is that my brother was really tough. I recall him getting sick once before recess when he was in elementary school. He didn't want to be forced to leave school before getting to go outside and play, so he supposedly threw up inside his own jacket to conceal the fact he was sick.
But the closest "sick" story I have off the top of my head was when he fractured his leg. That happened when he was maybe twelve years old, and it happened while he was playing soccer. 
It took him out of sports and other activities he loved for months. For awhile, he was stuck on the couch in the living room because it was too much of a hassle to hobble and down stairs. But, as far as I remember, he wasn't the kind of person to let this get him too down.
Oh, I remember him complaining that his leg itched under the cast. Or how much of a pain it was to have to go to the bathroom when he could hardly move his leg. But he didn't fall into some kind of depression over it, and he eventually recovered just fine.
I can't help but think that, if he were to look at what's going on today, he would think we're all being silly. He would laugh at the people rushing to the grocery stores to stock up on toilet paper. He'd probably have some poop joke about why they "need" so much of it. And you can bet, if it were fishing season right now, he'd absolutely be taking advantage of lakes emptied by people hiding out in their houses.
I can practically hear him saying, "Well, that's just more for me, then."

-Amanda J. Tucker

I have a whole plethora of video game-related memories with Jordan, but most of them are so brief, I couldn't really justify making a whole post of them. So I figured I would just put random snippets of memories here in this post - whichever ones come to mind first.
The Super Nintendo was a little bit early for us, but we had access to one at our grandparents' house. We had Super Mario Bros (I don't remember which one), and Jordan was seemingly a pro at it in my eyes. He knew how to get Yoshi in all these different colors, and I was pissed because I could only ever figure out how to get him in green.
We did more of our growing up up with the Playstation One. We didn't do as much gaming together on that, but I do remember Grand Theft Auto 2. We played it the most after Jordan fractured his leg when he was maybe around twelve years old. For awhile, he stayed downstairs on the couch because he didn't want to walk up and down the stairs with his big, clunky cast.
We played GTA 2 a lot on the TV downstairs. He actually knew what he was doing in the game. He knew how to find a tank and go on a rampage. I just liked playing because if you pressed the right buttons, your guy would burp and fart on the screen. Maybe I was a simpler child at times.
When the next generation of game consoles came out, Jordan got a PS2. He also was a well-established grumpy teenager by that time and wouldn't share it with his little sisters. Sometimes, if he was in a very generous mood, he would let us play something on it, but generally, he kept it to himself and played various sports games I wasn't interested in, anyway.
That's why, after saving up some birthday money for a bit, I decided I was going to get a PS2, too. But Jordan argued that was stupid because we already had one (even if I couldn't really play it) and made me get a GameCube. It was probably one of the smartest decisions I made in my life at the time, which isn't saying a lot, I guess.
I loved my GameCube, and it was all thanks to Jordan that I got it in the first place. He used to call it the "Game Cubicle" for whatever reason, while I just called it Gary. One of the first games I got on it was Super Smash Brothers Melee, which I used to play with Jordan and Bre all the time. We quickly unlocked all the characters together. 
I remember when we unlocked Mewtwo. Jordan threw down his controller and said he wouldn't play anymore, because I was getting too good, and he worried I would be impossible to beat if I always played Mewtwo. Too bad he didn't play with us very often after that, because honestly, Mewtwo kind of sucks and I would have started losing if I played as him a lot.
-Amanda J. Tucker

An older sibling can teach you many things. They might tell you how to handle upcoming classes or help you with homework. They might teach you how to do some kind of hobby, like playing a game, hunting, or fishing - as was the case with me many times, actually. They might even teach you how to play a sport. 
If I thought about it hard enough, I could probably tell you about several different lessons Jordan taught me. Maybe I'll write posts about them later, as I remember them. 
But one of the first things that comes to mind is the port-a-potties. (I'm not sure I'm spelling that right. I think that's how you'd write it?) I'm not sure how Jordan figured it out, but at some point, he learned how to lock those portable Johns from the outside. 
One summer, while we were out camping with our grandparents up at a campground on Lake Vermilion, Jordan told me he would impart this precious secret with me for seemingly no reason. He took me to the ring of portable Johns in the middle of the campground and demonstrated on one. 
It was pretty simple. I learned it quickly, and I put the knowledge to use. Right before we left the campground, he and I locked every portable John from the outside. 
I'm not sure how anyone discovered what we did or what happened. I imagine lines probably formed outside of them, and when no one ever came out of any of the bathrooms, someone probably reported it to the campground administration. 
Sometime later when we came back, I found that all the portable Johns had levers on the inside that made it extra-difficult to lock them from the outside, so we didn't bother with that again.
However, every once in awhile, to this day, I remember what he taught me when I see a portable John. And I get tempted to lock it from the outside.
It's a dumb thing to remember, but it's one thing I think he'd be proud of.
​-Amanda J. Tucker

This is a story that, if he were here today, Jordan would probably be exasperated that I'm telling everyone. I mean, it was supposed to be our secret to save us from Mom's wrath.
I don't recall exactly how old we were at the time. I'd estimate Jordan was 11 or 12, and I was 9 or 10. Bre, our sister, would have been two years younger than me. 
Mom had left us for a bit, with Jordan in charge. One thing she didn't consider is that we weren't very good cooks. When we got hungry, Jordan decided we would just pop a frozen pizza in the oven because it seemed easy. It's weird how wrong a simple frozen pizza can go.
I'm not sure why or how, or whether we didn't know how to set the timer on the oven...but we completely forgot the pizza. At some point, we only remembered it was there because the entire house started smelling like a burnt pizza. 
Panicked, Jordan pulled it out of the oven, only to find that the pizza had been reduced to an inedible black disc. I'm not exaggerating. It was completely black.
We assumed that Mom would be mad if she found out we wasted an entire pizza. So Jordan hatched a plan: we would bury the pizza in the back yard. Mom would never know what had happened. 
In retrospect, that seems really silly. But we did it. We buried an entire pizza in the back yard as if we were criminals hiding a body. 
For at least a day or two, it worked. Mom was none the wiser about the missing pizza. We gradually relaxed, thinking she would never find out. 
But of course, these things have a way of coming back to get you. At some point, I remember Mom was standing at our back door, staring out through the glass into our back yard. Our dogs had found something and were sniffing and nibbling at it, and she couldn't figure out what it was. 
I think even wild animals had found the pizza. At any rate, our secret was soon revealed.
I'll just never forget the time I had to hide a shady pizza with a Jordan. 

​
​-Amanda J Tucker