Big Brother

Those of you familiar with my penchant for politics are probably making some assumptions based on the title of this post - that I am going to go off on a tangent about the loss of liberties and the rapid encroachment of an oppressive government upon all things America.


Well you're wrong - so there!


Tonight I want to talk about ...

...my big brother.


He celebrated a birthday this week and - as is tradition, I will try and call him a day or so late to wish him happy birthday.

My brother is eleven years older than I and so we were not always real close. He was the oldest, I was the baby - we came up differently - and we have ended up different... but also alike. We shared the same room until he went away to college - which may be why we weren't real close.


I can now fully understand why a seventeen year old guy with much to prove, would not want his six year old little brother pinning up pictures he had coloredon the walls of his "pad". He often brings that up even today (he really should get past that). I usually come back with my own accounts of how he tried to kill me by bouncing up and down on the top of our bunk beds, while I quaked on the bottom bunk -yelling for my Mama.


I remember his class ring, if I were to shave my head, you could probably still find a scar resembling the inverted lettering for "Cedartown High School" there. He used to punctuate his nickname for me - "Punk!" - with a class-ring-to-the-head-reminder.


But there were good days too, during our communal existence. It's funny, I think I can remember most of them.


I remember my brother letting me camp out with him and another guy (the other guy was somewhat obnoxious which may be the reason I was allowed to go) and comforting me a little when I couldn't sleep.


I remember the day my brother taught me to ride a bicycle. Mom had to go somewhere that summer day and my big brother and I ate breakfast together. I remember because we had an egg eating contest and I won! I still remember the lump in my throat that I carried around for awhile after packing in those dry scrambled eggs.


Then, Mama had strictly told my brother not to take the training wheels off my bicycle. Mom was always trying to protect her "baby" and my brother was always trying to protect me from being a "baby" all my life. So instead of taking the training wheels off, he just raised them to the point that they couldn't be relied upon, and we set out to learn to two-wheel it. Then we set off on our quest.


I don't remember exactly how I progressed to that point, but soon I was all alone atop the little hill that descended past the front of our house. And several of my brother's contemporaries were down there with him at the foot of the hill, cheering me on!


I crashed somewhere near the bottom - skinning my knee (you know that is a phrase that is falling out of fashion these days). All those guys, along with my brother were patting me on the back and talking about how I had "done it!" - I had ridden down the hill on my own. I soon became too busy taking in all that praise to remember to cry about my skinned knee.


When Mom came home, we removed my training wheels forever.


When my brother got a job, he picked up a BB gun in a store one day and handed it to me, "if you can cock that thing, I'll buy you one" he said.


You may remember that the really dangerous thing about a Daisy BB Rifle was not getting shot with it. The worse danger lay in getting your finger broken while cocking the thing.


I struggled with it, and I actually think it was on another trip to that store that I finally cocked the thing. Soon I was killing every tin can in sight.


He also bought me my first baseball glove - I still have it. Well I actually had one of those little plastic gloves before that, but my brother bought me my first official, leather, Spalding flex-web glove with the Tom Seaver autograph in the pocket. He soon began teaching me how not to "catch like a girl".


I remember when he came home from college for the summer, he had electronic equipment!

Our room, which had once been ground zero for our points of contention, was now our little bachelor's pad, complete with a little television and a stereo. That summer, I played the Beatles' Hey Jude 45 record all the time (kids, 45's are smaller versions of LP Albums... LP meaning "Long Play"... these were crude carbon precursors to the digital storage devices of our day).



Most of the time, that summer, we were buds.


A few years back, my brother and I went into business together and for about two years, we were almost inseparable. Our constant attempts at entertaining one another and the catch-phrases that we developed during those days, are still legendary. The business failed and it was a trying time, but I still get tickled thinking about the laughs we had.


My brother is approaching his 60's.




I had let that soak in. Grandparents should be in their 60's... and maybe old uncles, but it seems very odd to have a brother that is almost 60.


He has and always will be, someone I look up to. I think he knows that.

These days, it comes pretty easy for us to say "I love you" to one another - I think especially since Dad has been in poor health.


A guy called me the other day to tell he had met my brother - anytime someone does that I feign embarrassment and ask something like - "he didn't try to sell you anything, did he?" - but deep down I like being associated with my big brother.



Kinda' like when we shared the same room only without the coloring book pictures.


Happy birthday, Bro (belated of course).



I love you.