Today is April Fool's day. Most commemorate this with practical jokes and what not, but I celebrate my brother's birthday. No day is more fitting than this day for him to have been born. He was an exception. not the rule.
Mom and Dad were not supposed to have children, yet there he is, a real life April Fool's joke. God had to have a sense of humor. Then, when I showed up, that was even more cruel. Jim was born when mom thirty-eight, I arrived short of her forty-second birthday.
As we grew up, I know I must have aggravated him. Like the time he says I was pretending to snore, but wasn't ( I really was snoring) or the time he got so mad at me he threw a baseball at me and missed. Or the time he threw up in the window of our room and I had to clean it up. Then there was the time he let me take his new GTO and learn to drive a stick. He sat there quietly while I ground through the gears and hopped off of stops, and killed it a couple of times. When I was about 4, he tied me to a horse hitch up at our granny's house and tried to burn me at the stake! Luckily Granny caught him and put me out.
Jim has always been my hero. When he was young, he could hit a ball a mile, and knew sports inside and out. His ability to motivate players always astounded me and I tried during my coaching career to be as good as he was. He has more than a knowledge of history, he has a passion for it and loves to teach it. He was a natural at teaching.
We are separated now by a couple thousand miles, but we talk every week; sometimes twice a week. I miss it when we don't, I just love to hear his voice and hear what he is doing back in Illinois. Jim is a true story teller, and his tales of his grankids make me laugh.
I hope he has a Happy Birthday. He deserves it.
I love you, man....
Bro Doughnut
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