Brother’s birthday stirs good memories
Today is my brother’s 21st birthday and I really cannot believe he is that old.
Granted, I know and realize that I am 24 and that John is three years younger than I am, so logically it makes sense, but in my mind he’s still 12.
My brother was actually a pretty cute kid (when he wasn’t tormenting me). He went through more phases than I can probably even remember: there was the Power Ranger phase (and let’s face it, what kid in the 90s didn’t have one of those), the hippie phase (where he was constantly wearing something with a peace sign on it), and I vaguely seem to remember a cowboy phase.
John and I had it pretty good growing up because our mom stayed home with us. When she picked us up from school, we would come home, have a snack, work on homework and then go outside to play.
We used to make roads on our driveway out of sidewalk chalk, create concoctions out of mud and acorns in the hollowed-out base of a tree, jump on our trampoline until we couldn’t stand it anymore, play basketball at our neighbors’ house, and go help our neighbor, Bob Hamilton, when he would come home from a fishing trip and would clean the fish outside his garage.
When we were stuck inside, we would play Nintendo for hours upon hours. The old school Nintendo was our favorite and we’d play various Mario games until we were blue in the face. We’d also play Duck Hunt and John would make fun of me because the only way I could shoot the ducks was to stand with my gun about two inches from the TV screen.
We have tons of other memories from birthdays, Christmases, vacations and other events, and if I were to name each one, I would run way past the allotted space for this column.
Over the years, John and I have fought and bickered like siblings do (sometimes more than other siblings, I’m sure), but I love that kid to pieces and I’d fight a tiger for him if I needed to.
I know we’re both growing up… it’s just the way things go. He’s going to college and doing his own thing, and I rarely see him now that I’m married and out of the house (which isn’t always bad… many a fight was started when he happened to wake me up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday).
But I miss those days when our biggest problems were whether or not we would rescue Princess Toadstool from the clutches of the evil Bowser or when we weren’t allowed to play outside until our homework was finished. And I’m sure he does, too.
In fact, John, let’s drag out the old Nintendo soon, okay?
