Happy Birthday Brian

I must say that you've managed to overcome the disappointment I felt when mom walked through the front door with another baby wrapped in a blue blanket. I don't know which was worse - that she'd not brought home a sister, or that she whisked you back to the master bedroom and my next clear memory of you is when you bit my finger and drew blood in the shade of the maple tree on Anderson. A whole year of your existence, just gone.

Other Brian classics:

• The bag of candy you refused to share on your last day at The Early Learning Center and consumed in one stomach wrenching afternoon;
• The time Mom insisted that a bite of potato would not make you sick and you proved her gloriously, copiously wrong. In technicolor blue;
• The day you crushed Michael’s kindergarten dreams, picked up the bike he’d been trying so hard to master and zipped down the street while he howled in bitter anguish;
• Dressing you up as a Star and taking you trick or treating because you were sick and Mom said you could only go supervised;
• Cutting your hair the day before middle school started;
• Stuffing you into the new city issued 1578 gallon trashcan, tipping it and surfing the slightly battered contents down the driveway;
• Maury Meyers;
• Riding with Mom and Dad all the way from Texas to Florida because you were too cheap to chip in for gas in the fun car;
• Having to pick bell peppers out of your sandwich (you were how old?) on the same trip;
• Who could forget the side-of-the-interstate-during-a-hurricane fight with Mike over driving safety? Sweet irony;
• And of course your childhood opus, “I’m smrt”.

Chronologically the years say that you’re an adult, but you’re still the kid brother and the last 33 years have been full of laughter. Don’t grow up too much.

Cheers.