Geriatric Jedi and the Mighty Mike

Tags

cancer, Dustin Hoffman, Fred Rogers, Jack Crabb, Jedi, Little Big Man, Marie Antoinette, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sara Bareilles, The Champ, Tim McGraw

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

            Mike is pretty sure Miss Laurie thinks his tractor’s sexy …

I’ve long contended that ADDers – those with ADHD – don’t die.

At least not natural deaths, says Screen Five.

But in my family, something far more powerful than Attention Deficit (with Hyperactivity) Disorder prevents our perishing.

That “unknown” does get passed rather smoothly from generation to generation, agrees One.

Great Aunt Mary is, at 106 years of age, the rough, tough female equivalent of Jack Crabb in “Little Big Man.” She grows up on the South Dakota plains at a time when the Badlands truly are the bad lands. Struggling to eke out a living, Miss Mary endures confrontations with the original Americans – several different Indian tribes not entirely pleased with the white man’s encroachment – as she keeps an eye out for cattle rustlers, thunderous storms, prairie fires, unkempt gunslingers, smothering snows and wild critters.

Her greatest moment comes, as great moments often do, unexpectedly.

My long-lived relative steps out onto the spacious veranda –

That’s “front porch” to you Yanks, explains Three, a Yank himself.

– and breathes deeply of the head-clearing air. With the oft-fearsome skies holding true blue, it will be another beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Apologies to Mister Rogers, offers Two.

It is, Miss Mary decides, a perfect day for strolling out to the rather distant mailbox, her walking cane in hand. Mail retrieved, she returns, ascends the steps to her porch and, moments from safe re-entry of the front door, encounters a sunning rattlesnake.

His tanning session interrupted by this spindly creature on two legs, the rattler, fast-approaching and very agitated, prepares to battle Miss Mary for ownership of the home.

“Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill,” suggests the ancient quote. Miss Mary is an avid student of literature. Her cane, moments earlier a mere guide and support for an aged body, becomes a lightsaber in the skilled hands of this geriatric Jedi. She pins the raucous rattler neatly in place against the worn veranda floorboards.

Brings new meaning to “bloody Mary,” comments Four.

There the two combatants, frozen in time and stance, remain for well over an hour as serpent writhes to free itself of plains-hardened arms. The contest of wills ends only when Miss Mary’s eldest son, Tom, rides up to the ranch. His arrival doubles human numbers and sinks snake odds.

Miss Mary’s genes live on, as do those of others about whom I’ve written. Heroes they are … but of yesteryear. Meet a modern man of steel:

Michael, eldest Blackwell.

In his early 50s at the time, Mike pays for a movie ticket, walks toward the select multiplex theater, sees a restroom and swings in. His relief turns disbelief as he bathes the urinal in pure blood.

“Cancer,” the doctor says. “Unlikely you’ll see your next birthday.”

Mike never touched a cigarette! protests bewildered Six.

He is strong, fit, active, laments mounrful Two. This isn’t right.

But it is correct, observes Four.

Prayer goes up, weight goes down, diet goes sideways. Mike smiles and swallows complaints before they escape his lips. We his younger siblings hold tightly to his frame, fearing these wrestler-strength hugs may be the last we’re granted.

And then – miraculously, unexpectedly, incredibly – it is Mike’s next birthday. He snuffs cake candles, laughs at re-shaped body, frowns at reduced abilities, rejoices at extended life. I send him Tim McGraw‘s “Live Like You Were Dying” DVD wrapped in grateful tears.

Don’t forget what you nicknamed him, cautions Two: Chemo Sabe.

“That’s our mighty Mikey,” say four siblings reeling at losing Big Boy No. Two shortly before this. Jeff’s passing causes daily disorientation; Mike’s reprieve allows us to adjust. Life gains value as we grasp how easily we may slip from one another.

But the dreaded phone call comes, anyway. “Mike,” announces the lilting Georgia accent of his ladyfriend, “is fighting for his life, y’all.”

Cancer’s back, gasps Five.

“Actually, no,” replies Miss Laurie. “Appendicitis.”

Youngest-brother Barry had that in the South Dakota wilds, trumpets Six. Still made it to the doctor.

“Mike just thought he had severe indigestion,” she continues, “so he ate several rolls of Tums.”

Wild Blackwellian laughter.

“Yeah, well, the appendix inside Mike exploded.” Miss Laurie pauses, collects herself, then delivers the all-too painful punchline we didn’t anticipate. “Several days ago, y’all.”

Against all medical predictions, Big Boy No. One pulls through once more –

Takes a knockout punch, boasts Six. Comes up swinging.

– and we cheer madly. Prematurely. Mere days later, Mike yet again returns to the hospital –

Does he get some Frequent Die-er discount? wonders Three.

– in great discomfort. Doctors re-slice his just-made zippers and find Mike deeply poisoned by previously undiscovered portions of the exploded appendix.

One more round of surgeries and The Champ goes home.

But not Home! Two enthusiastically reminds. He stays Earthbound!

What’s best is that Big Boy No. 1, having endured so much himself, encourages the rest of us to hang tough, refuse to surrender, stay put a bit longer. And why not follow his lead? After all, Mike this week celebrates another birthday despite doctors’ dark diagnoses.

Yet gentleman that he is, Mighty Mike would invite those same well-meaning doctors to the party and …

Let ’em eat cake.

Postscript: To double my joy and thankfulness, I propose to my beautiful brown-eyed girl on the very birthday Mike’s cancer was supposed to cancel.

Handing Miss Laura what looks like a beautiful fine-wood telescope, I ask that she look through it at me. Surprised, she exclaims, “A kaleidoscope! I see two dozen of you.”

“Perfect,” I reply. “Perfect, because … well, you love me in so many ways, I want many of me to ask this of you.” Getting down on one knee, I smile and say, “Miss Laura, will you bless me by being my wife?”

She pulls the kaleidoscope away from her eye. “What?”

“I asked, ‘Will you marry me?’”

My “intended,” the desire of my heart, the love of my life, laughs madly. “You’re such a kidder!” She does not answer my question, so I rephrase it.

“Miss Laura, please marry me.”

She looks at me, gauging my facial expression. “Oh. You’re serious?’

Screen Four whispers, Creativity? Overrated.

* * * * *

Magic is going to the birds these days

Soccer bursts a bubble

Great music with strings attached

If only I could get Ted to lose this bet

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So Two Guys Walk into a Bar(n) …

Tags

Arabian purebred, Asgard, Claude Rains, Cold Light of Day, Henry Cavill, Invisible Man, Thor, Young Frankenstein

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

          You can bet Dan and Donna Roth didn’t build this home!

“Here’s the deal,” says Dan Roth, my good friend and, at the moment, my employer. “We got kind of a late order for the building of this next pole barn.”

No worries, mate, reassures Screen Six, who fancies himself a bit of a builder.

“So we don’t have the extensive lead time we normally get for a project this size.”

I repeat myself, says Six with confidence.

“The owners want extra touches on the barn because it will be home to expensive Arabian purebreds.”

Purebreds? repeats Five. And expensive Arabians at that, mind you. His voice trails off with an awe-filled Wow.

“And the horses are coming in three weeks.”

Apparently, observes One, Dan has forgotten that a hammer in your hand is a danger to everyone but the nails you should be driving.

Buoyed by the calmness Six exudes, I laugh at the etched lines of concern noted by One and seen on Dan’s sizable forehead. His noggin appears all the larger due to the tan line his builder’s cap has created in this blistering sun.

Black, asks Two, is this a good place to point out Dan’s nickname as a child was Mr. BigHead?

“I’m ignoring you, Two.”

We work at breakneck pace – Dan’s ladder kicks out beneath him, so he leaps for a beam and continues hammering as he hangs by the other hand – but it is clear at the end of Week One we are not going to hit the unrealistic deadline. To help make up the time, Dan brings in his brother, Doug.

Wow, whistles Five. Dan totally trusts his next-youngest brother to save the day. That’s not like you and Teddy.

At one point, the two brothers disagree on how a certain portion of the barn should be erected. I am no builder –

Oh, the brothers agree on that, says Four.

– so I stay quiet and study the unique manner in which these two soft-spoken men resolve their difference. They walk over to the barn’s upright center post, a 40-foot-high, eight-inch by eight-inch wooden pole cemented deeply into the ground. In the left and right hand of each man is a hammer.

Two lowers his voice. They’re going to beat each other to death?

Doug turns to me, softly says, “Give us a three count, Black,” and the duo look up to the roof. At what they gaze, I cannot see, but I loudly give the count.

Hearing “go,” the Roth brothers swing like Thor of Asgard and slam hammer-clawed sides into the post, human woodpeckers alternating arms and climbing inhumanly fast. By less than one full stroke, Daniel claws his way to victory as he touches the roof first.

Doug graciously concedes the victory, he and Dan return to Earth, and the two build the barn’s next portion according to the older brother’s vision.

No wonder the younger heeds the older, comments One. Unlike you, that elder shows wisdom.

Despite such speedy settlements of design differences, we finish Week Two still behind our timetable. Soon we are the Invisible Men to our spouses as we work 18 hours each day, bodies long pushed past their abilities.

Could be worse, remarks Three. Could work ’round the clock.

“Black,” says Dan wearily, “gotta work all night to build stalls. Arabians … coming tomorrow.”

Six tries to encourage me, but falls asleep mid-sentence. I nod in friendship – Dan has kept me on despite my limited skills – and we set up the lanterns and generator. Arms that earlier told us they could do no more find renewed strength and forge ahead. I drive thick 40-penny nails with previously unknown accuracy; Dan cuts one board after another and flips them to me.

Only the bats distract me, fluttering so closely that my face and eyes feel the velvet softness of their wings –

Please let it be their wings! begs Four.

– as they flap past. I even mention it to Dan. He looks around the shadows, frowns, shakes his head and slices more boards.

Morning arrives outside the barn, soft light sneaking through the openings yet in need of doors. Dan leaves twice to replenish supplies. I skulk within the darkness, a hammering vampire.

Hampire? queries Three.

The nervous female owner of the invading Arabians brings fortifying pastries and calls us forth from the barn. Only then do I step into the first full light of day.

And throw hands to eyes, caterwauling in agony, comments Five.

Rushed to the doctor by Dan’s wife, Donna –

Black, interrupts Two, is this a good time to tell readers Dan married Donna, and then Doug married Donna’s younger sister, Dorothy?

– I learn the “bat wings gently touching my face” all night actually are poorly galvanized nailheads chipping beneath my striking hammer and spraying my unprotected eyes. Several metal chunks have lodged in my peepers.

The eye is a remarkable organ, offers Five. Its healing speed is unrivaled, which is why that metal will need to be dug out, not just airbrushed away.

The ophthalmologist leans over, deadens my ocular organs with desensitizing drops, cranks my eyelids wide and thrusts a needle into my left peeper.

“Aughhhh!” I shout. “Stop, stop, stop!”

He snaps upright. “That hurt?”

“No. But I – I can see what you’re doing!”

Did he just mention restraints to the nurse? whispers Two.

Eventually the metal is mined. I am released, head thickly wrapped with eye pads to shield them from light. Donna drives me home and I, with little else to do, lie down to rest.

Sleep is elusive.

Count horses, not sheep? suggests Four.

Dan calls to check up on me. Hearing my exhaustion, he says, “Hey, I’ll drive over and visit for a while.”

I touch my huge sight-blocking bandages and mutter, “I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

Postscript: The ophthalmologist issues a prescription for painkillers. Before Miss Donna drives me home, she takes me straight to the pharmacy. As she parks, my treacherous lips say, “I don’t need ’em.”

Screen Six bellows, Soldier tough! though I’ve never served our country.

Unable to see Miss Donna’s face through my thick wrappings, I nonetheless hear her voice. “Let me get these, anyway. Please? Just in case. If the pain returns when those desensitizing drops wear off, you’ll regret not having this order filled.”

She wins – cleverly pulls the “boss” card, comments One – and goes into the drugstore while I sit, blind and baffled, in the truck. Just four minutes have passed since we left the ophthalmologist’s office. Only nine more tick by as my friend waits for the pharmacist to package the tablets and ring up the charge.

Miss Donna returns to the truck, which no longer contains her friend and employee but a crazed man howling, “My eyes! Aughhhhh! There’s a brick in ’em, a whole brick just shoved in!”

“Would you like two painkillers now?” she sweetly asks between my screams. “I bought you a pop to take them with … just in case.”

Can’t see a thing, Black, says Four, but I think she’s silently laughing her socks off.

* * * * *

Yes, dads, our daughters grow this quickly

Stuntman dressed as cop struts his stuff

I’m flying this airline from now on

A harmonious bow to Easter and Passover friends

 

 

Waiting for Just the Right Moment

Tags

Bonanza, Brad Pitt, Kid President, Laura Ingalls, Le Marseillaise, Little Joe

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

     Inspector Clousseau and I share an equally terrible French accent

My beautiful brown-eyed bride will confirm unpredictability is a permanent co-resident of Attention Deficit (with Hyperactivity) Disorder. (Excuse her manic laughter, please.)

Even I, ADHD possessor, am unsure how certain situations will end. Only my six screens seem to know, and they never share their view of my future.

Well, says Six confidently, we know you don’t die. That’s been covered plenty in this column.

But our many talents? explains Four. Those stay under wraps until just the right moment.

That conversation is forgotten until days later, when I rearrange the display table’s baked goods yet again as a van pulls up. It’s creepily dark in color, less from paint hue and more from –

Filth, shivers Screen Two. Got a spooky feeling about this. Three agrees.

“Relax, guys. We’re at our youth group’s highway rest stop fundraiser. In broad daylight. Two miles from home.” I laugh in amazement at their rare display of fear. “What could possibly go wrong?”

You get upset when we say that, complains Four.

“Because you sound like my next-youngest brother, Thor, just moments before he does something that could end life as I know it.”

Argue later, interrupts Six. Check out what the van just burped up.

A short, overly heavy chap exits the driver’s seat, his greasy hair braids entwined like nesting snakes. He opens the ancient van’s sliding side door for an equally heavy woman in a long, flowing dress reminiscent of prairie times, which may be the last time it was washed.

Just need a bonnet and Little Joe, comments Three, humming “Bonanza.”

The van is black inside, not from lack of light but dearth of clean. Two soiled creatures walk straight to my three tables lined with cookies, cakes and pie slices set to be sold to hungry truckers needing a break. “Coffee!” demands the man –

Braid Pit, Three cleverly names him.

– without greeting. His odor headlocks my nose. Four asks, Would that body melt if it met water?

“Yes,” I answer Four and the man, adding for the latter’s benefit that the coffee is given on a donation basis.

“Ain’t free?”

You’re not gonna get a dime out of this character, cautions Five. Keep your guard up.

Braid rambles, meaningless words filling the air his body pollutes. One of my fellow workers steps near. “He looks hungry,” she whispers. “Slip him some freebies.”

No need, glowers One. Check out Laura Ingalls.

My eyes swing right. Our prairie princess stuffs cookies at high speed into deep dress pockets.

As I step toward the Pilfering Puritan, Mr. Pit realizes his distracting tactics failed. “Nothin’ to eat for several days,” he says in a mournful tone. “Stopped here to wash in the bathrooms.” He pivots slightly, points to the parking lot. “Live in our van. That’s all we do … drive up and down Interstate 5.”

Hogwash! shouts Six, his image too strong for my queasy stomach and assaulted nostrils. Who pays all the gas and oil that clunker eats?

A small hand taps my tense shoulders. The whisper returns. “It’s OK. Really.”

Does she not see the woman filling still more hidden pockets?

Soft, gentle, convicting. “Say something to encourage her to have all she wants.”

Highway robbery, laughs One. In the truest sense.

I line up with Miss Ingalls, her pockets bulging like cloth chipmunk cheeks. “Would you” – I grimace – “like a cup of lemonade?”

“She don’t speak,” interjects Braid. “Can hear, alright, but she’s dumb.”

Did he just call the kettle black? asks Four, disbelieving.

We don’t say “dumb,” growls Three. She’s mute, that’s all.

“Picked her up in Quee-bec seven, maybe 10 years ago,” continues Braid as Miss Ingalls fiercely gulps three lemonades. “Ain’t never said a word.” He scratches his ample belly, yawns, walks toward the restroom. “Gonna go bathe. Stay here.”

Not a problem, replies Five, gagging. For any of us.

I watch the blackened figure take bow-legged steps, his huge belly parting his spindly legs. Screen Three whispers, Remember those “talents under wraps,” boss? Time to unveil.

Leaning over the decimated desserts, I clear my throat and address the cookie monster.

Quebec, eh? utters Three through my lips in his finest New Providence High School accent. Parlez-vous Francais, mademoiselle?

Black, sighs One, write your exchange in English. We get that you’re speaking another language. You’ll sound much sharper this way. Your French teachers, Monsieur Castaldo and Madame Sardella, won’t be embarrassed by incorrect translations.

Miss Ingalls emits something between a gasp and a squeal, so emboldened Three asks, How old are you?

“Don’t know,” she replies in Quebecois, a thick French dialect of Canada. Five screens burst into unrestrained cheers, then quickly quiet for the woman’s next answer: “Maybe my thirties.”

Despite fast-thinking Three’s many years since high school, he pulls up every French noun, every verb conjugation, every idiomatic expression those teachers taught. Words pass my lips in almost unbroken flow.

Miss Ingalls answers slowly, testing tongue long dormant. Braid Pit had called her a child. She seems mentally no more developed than that, but Three easily converses at this low speed.

My peripheral vision picks up several faces, stunned co-worker expressions silently etched in place. Mesmerized mimes are joined by painfully protesting Mr. Pit.

“She don’t talk!” he insists as she turns to him and continues her French. “Wh-what’s she saying?” he mutters in contradiction, begging translation of her lazy stream of syllables.

Miss Ingalls shares nothing Earth-shaking, according to Three. Just that she’s tired, hungry, and lonely for family in Canada.

“You should take her back up where you found her,” I tell Braid. “Drive around a bit. Post a photo of her in places. She may yet have kin.”

Braid looks forlorn, lightly taps the woman’s arm with his meaty fist. “Don’t wanna lose my travelin’ buddy.”

Doubt she shares the sentiment, warns Six.

Three asks Miss Ingalls, Do you want to go with him?

She half-smiles, slowly nods in agreement. “Don’t really know any other way.”

“Of what?”

“Of life.”

She accepts a final lemonade –

So much juice! remarks Five. They’ll hit every rest stop on this highway.

– as I hand over one last round of cookies and bid them well. I wave, then my kind co-worker softly punches my arm, too. “All that French,” she says. “Didn’t know you had it in you.”

In me! boasts Three.

“Just grateful she couldn’t report how bad I was.”

“You, Mr. Blackwell … always such a surprise. So many talents.”

“Can’t show ’em all at once,” I laugh. “Keeping some under wraps.”

For just the right moment, says Three, humming Le Marseillaise.

 

Postcript: Don’t be fooled. I do not excel in French. The young woman proved responsive only because I spoke in her heart language and my words sang to her.

That doesn’t always happen.

Standing on the edge of the Yucatan jungle, I scan what’s left of a rugged beach along the Gulf of Mexico. (Last night’s wild storm brought crashing waves into my tent. I dreamed I was drowning.) My eyes light upon a bikinied lass struggling to erect her tent. She is Chupette, from France.

Nudged by Screen Three, I strike up conversation, the only one I’ve had in my travels throughout Mexico. (My Spanish is limited to “Hola, amigo, where’s el cuarto de baño?” Asking for bathrooms impresses no one.)

But this woman is thrilled to have lame linguistic company in so lonely a place. Tent snapped together, she hugs me, prompting Screen Three to push through my lips and utter in French, May I have a kiss?

Mademoiselle Chupette gasps, steps back, speedily lifts one hand in a manner that suggests I will see stars for several years. I shout in good old American panic, “Wh-what’s wrong?”

The sincerity softens her. “Two verbs in French sound very much close,” she says in that wonderful accent. “One asks for kiss, the other for – ” she reddens deeply – “ehhh, much more, you would say?”

Unslapped, screens cheer Three, who whispers humbly, C’est la vie.

* * * * *

Imagine runnin’ with a rhino …

First day on Earth?

That’s What I Like About Ted (Second Shot!)

Tags

E.J. Korvette, The Accident

Imagine yourself in a multiplex movie theater. Curiously, no walls separate the half-dozen theaters that form the multiplex. Miraculously, you are watching six different screens all at once, thoroughly understanding and enjoying every scene, word, character.

Welcome to ADHD. 

[You in the Real World, be sure to click on the red underlined hyperlinks!]

    Note to self: avoid photos in which handsome brothers also appear

[Editor: Yes, you have seen this column before. Well, sort of. I set it to publish one day early … before I had built in all the extras you have come to know and love. This was not an intentional, belated April Fools’ Day joke. It is ADHD in action. So here’s the actual column, complete with photos and links and postscripts and everything a person could ever want.]

You can tell by the title this may be my briefest “ADHD Powered” column ever.

He’s your brother, reminds Screen Two. There are lots of things you can “like” about him.

“You’re right, Two,” I say. “Let me think. OK, he visits me.”

See? Found something already! You like that Ted visits you.

“No, I mean I like that he leaves.”

Five steps in. You’re jealous.

“What?” I scoff as I throw my head back and laugh way too hard. “Give me one good reason.”

Younger. Stronger. Taller. Better-looking. Popular. Gentle. Good-natured. Humorous.

“I said ‘one’ good reason. And why’d you stop? Run out already, did you?

Catch my breath for the next eight.

“Guys,” I protest, “I’m not jealous. I get that Thor’s all those things Five mentioned. But there’s far more to this sibling relationship than meets the eye.”

Oh, says One. Y’mean his breaking all your swimming records?

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

Well, we’re in-side your head, Black, comments Four, so I suppose that means we’re on your side. By sheer default.

De fault of whom? winks Three, but I ignore him.

“Look, let me explain a few things to the six of you, because screens have no idea what life out here is like.”

At the risk of being Captain Obvious, replies Six, I think we’ve got a very good idea. Remember, Black, we’ve been here with you all along. 

“But you’ve led such sheltered lives! You never endured the embarrassment that comes from having a brother two years younger catch you in size before first grade.”

True, agrees Four.

“And comparisons are never-ending. I barely survived having coaches tell me, ‘How come you can’t dribble a soccer ball like Mike, your oldest brother? Wow, could that guy put out some fancy footwork.’ Or a gym teacher would say, ‘Now that Jeff was a hustler. Your next-oldest brother could run all day at high speed and never get winded.’”

Thought we were railing against Ted, notes One.

“We were! We are! That’s my whole point. I thought once I made it past the huge shadow my two older brothers created, I had it made. I would grow –”

Wrong! declares Three.

“ – and blaze my own trail.”

You sort of did, says Two. I mean, the trail you made is full of pigeon-toed footprints, so that should count, right?

“Instead, I got sandwiched! Two dashing, strong, athletic older brothers and two dashing, strong, athletic younger brothers!”

Good point, admits Two. At least you didn’t compete with your twin sister.

“Oh, yes I did! Dianne, the only girl in the entire family (left, with daughter Cassie), shows up at the same time I do!”

Actually, 300 seconds earlier, corrects One. And she is cuter.

“I don’t even get mistaken for being my twin’s twin! Mom invites guests over, then presents Ted, Dianne and me. But one woman blabs on about tall, dark-haired Ted and tall, dark-haired Dianne being perfect fraternal twins.”

Says Five, The confusion is understandable. You are small and blond.

And left-handed, adds Two.

“The wounds continue through the years. Here I am, 30, out shopping with my four brothers at E.J. Korvette, and Mike gets stopped by an attractive woman. They talk a moment. Then she turns, eyes us and says, ‘Well, Michael, aren’t you going to introduce me to all these good-looking men?’

“Mike smiles, nods and points to each one of us as he says, ‘Jeff … Barry … Ted … and Dennis. They’re all my brothers.’

“The woman bursts into laughter. ‘Not that last one! C’mon, you can’t fool me. He’s not six foot and handsome like the rest of you!’”

I remember that, Black, Screen Six seethes. We all voted to knock her out.

“Jeff graduated from high school my freshman year. His powerful influence wiped out my sophomore year, so I couldn’t wait to be a junior – an upper classman! But my very first day – what I hoped would be the start of my best year ever – a beautiful senior named Donna rushes to me, grabs my face with both hands, and – “

Lays down a super smooch? suggests Three, panting.

“ – shouts, ‘Oh, my gosh, I just saw your youngest brother and he’s soooo good looking! I’ve got to meet him! Please, introduce me!’”

We never dreamed you’d work your way through all those “poor self-esteem” issues, Black, marvels Six. Proud of you for hanging in there.

And recover I have. Slowly. Across many years. Bit by bit. Learning to appreciate the aura around my beloved siblings … their magnetism, their charisma, their rugged good looks and sports-crafted physiques. I make such astounding progress that I dare to attend the 25^th reunion of my high school graduating class, doing so despite being markedly busted up from The Accident and struggling to remember my classmates.

Into the event I stroll, my wonderful friend Miss Lauren carefully guiding and feeding me names. I make it through the entire evening, laughing and hugging and discreetly checking magic-marker tags. Finally it is time to go, and I swing through the great hall one last time to bid adieu to those with whom I grew into early adulthood.

All have said kind things to me. Nobody has compared me to a brother and wondered why I’m not “this way” or “like that.” Not one voice has questioned why Ted set state scoring records in football and I left behind the family’s best gradepoint average.

I am floating in a sea of self-confidence.

One last person waits by the exit doors. This is Cindy, whose beauty back then still envelops her as wonderfully as the gown she dons in her role of a court judge (known for her tough stance on crime, no less). She stops me and, for a moment, we sway together, I from lack of natural balance and she from assisted tipsiness.

Then she leans down to me and whispers, “I’ve always thought you were cute.”

You’ve waited a long time, whispers Six. Enjoy this.

“Th-thank you, Cindy,” I stutter, caught offguard.

“It’s true,” she assures, then gently kisses my cheek. “But you’re welcome, Barry.”

Postscript: If you haven’t gathered it by now, let me help you: I love my next-youngest brother. That childhood with Ted/Thor has given me lifetime reminiscences (yes, my Traumatic Brain Injury affected only my short-term memory and class reunions). Indeed, I love all my brothers … and that rascally DiAnnie Oakley twin of mine, too.

But I’m still going to use this opportunity to get in one last good shot at my “co-adventurer.” (This is a follow-up to my threat last week in the “Comments” section … after Thor got ME with his letter about my legs being hairier than Chewbacca’s.)

On one of my trips back to the East Coast to see Thor, he begs me to visit him at the club managed by his former high-school football coach. Arriving, I learn my brother has practiced golf, a new development. “How far can you drive the ball?” I ask, and he tells me. Impressed, I ask, “How accurate are you?”

He points out a somewhat distant and empty golf cart. “I can hit that,” he says without a trace of boast in his voice. Thor selects a club, lines up his shot and gives that dimpled ball a mighty whack. In the time the ball is traveling, two previously unnoticed men finish their drinks,  quickly step into the golf cart and prepare to drive off.

THUNK! goes the ball as it caroms off the cart. The surprised men throw hands over heads and bail frantically. Thor gasps, turns to me and, just as the shouting duo look my way …

Puts the driver in my hands.

* * * * *

You cannot keep the soul from dancing

Children live out their wildest dreams

That’s What I Like About You