Happy Birthday to My Big Brother

Dear Mike:

On the occasion of your forthieth birthday:

I was sitting right there next to you when that 2-year-old picture was taken, as I was for the vast majority of them taken through the years. I never minded ceding the spotlight to you, and there are few places in the world where I feel more naturally-suited than around you. 

I'm glad that we adhered to bachelor party camera rules during our teens and twenties. And I am relieved that cell phone cameras did not exist. I am further glad that GPS was not yet common, because if certain people in our lives knew where we were, when we were there, and what really happened, I would not want even to speculate on the outcome. I am grateful that watch cases could be spun backwards so that the hour hand would be on the 10 instead of the 11 when we got home late.

I am glad that my primary fistfight-partner was larger than life so that I learned early how to take an ass-kicking, and not to fear someone because he was big.

I am happy that I learned the Guy Rules early, and that "telling Mom" was reserved for missing persons, gushing wounds and broken legs.

Through every jam in which we found ourselves, I knew that because you were with me, we would either find our way out of it or suffer the consequences together. I carry that with me today, knowing that there is a solution or a tolerable compromise to every problem. Though greatly relieved, I was not surprised when you called me from Baton Rouge in August 2005 after figuring your way out of New Orleans.

I derive great pleasure from telling my daughters about our more innocent escapades. Like many in the general public, they react at first with horror, and then see the humor. Sarah Kate loves when I tell the story about Thanksgiving. Kiki declared, "And you WILL have ties on at Thanksgiving dinner." She loves our literal interpretation of "ties," and gets it that the wearing of shirts with those ties would be implied, not literal. She also loves our literal interpretation of "having shirts on" at dinner in general.

I still look at the clock when I'm playing hockey. I do this because of the way, at Age 7, you explained that NHL players focus on the clock and not on the game so that they come off their shifts at the right time. You said it like you genuinely believed it. You probably did. So like everything else you explained to me, I took it as Gospel.

I learned from you that it is acceptable to stand up to people, no matter who those people are, when those people are wrong. That it is OK to disregard rules that are dictatorial, arbitrary, and don't make sense. And that common sense wins the day over book smarts every time.

Thanksgiving still isn't Thanksgiving without Ted Juda, though I still don't know what happened to his window. The timing of the "Six Feet Under" question on the MTV video game is still funny. Mom still doesn't know that the Camaro was actually parked somehwere else when she went INTO the Seneca Mall in 1984.

Thank God for all of this. None of it would have happened without you.

Matt