He was 71

I don’t know why this is the memory that sprang to mind when I started thinking about my older brother, Charlie.

Mom and Dad had bought a new refrigerator, so we had a big cardboard box to play with in the yard. It became a spaceship. Bruce and I were the intrepid space explorers, and Charlie was outer space: He moved the box and jostled it to simulate the journey.

Upon landing on another planet, it became quiet — almost … TOO quiet! We had made a little window flap, and I pulled it op...