I was third in line. The youngest son. I wasn’t very good at sports, though I dabbled in a variety of them. I was no threat to hit a home-run. Or cut off a runner at second. I just didn’t have the power. There was no way I was going to hit that buzzer beater at the end of the game because I couldn’t make the basketball team. And I was absolutely not going to break that run open for a touchdown. I was just too slow. But I played all the sports. Because it was expected. You see, I was the little brother.
My brothers were athletes. And very good ones. Me, well, I played all the sports because my brothers made me. I wasn’t going to embarrass them by being, as one of my brothers said, “a punk.” I held my own with or neighborhood friends. When I did make an organized sport’s team, like the Little League, I usually sat the bench. I didn’t mind, though, because I came to the realized the limits of my athleticism at a very young age.
I never felt bad about it. Sure, there were things that I could have done to improve, but I was comfortable playing the role that had been handed to me. And truth be told, my foray into athletics gave me something that I probably wouldn’t have gotten had I done other things – time with my older brothers. There were five years between me and my oldest brother, and 4 four years between me and my other brother. So, when I was nine years old, they were already teenagers and involved in other things.
When my mother would tell them to take me with them, while they would complain, inside, I was elated. And later in the evening, though they made me stay at a distance so as not to embarrass them, they would offer me the kindness of a cheeseburger, shake and fries from the Burger Chef. It was the absolute best.
As the years progressed, we grew a little closer. When my oldest brother went off to college, he would come home to work during the summer. And on the weekends, we’d take to the highways to see his college buddies in their hometowns. We covered a lot of miles together and listened to a ton of riding music while making our way to such towns as Steubenville, Elyria, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Warren, and Youngstown. Sometimes we’d stop unannounced to see our other brother at Bowling . He’d pretend to be annoyed when we showed up, but I know he was happy to see us.
Time Has Worked Against Us
But, just as we grew closer with time, it was also our nemesis. The years have passed quickly. Today, we don’t see each other very often. In fact, maybe once or twice a year. Our children are all grown up, and all three of us have grandchildren. We are aging and while our youthful spirits still abound within us, our exteriors are starting to show the effects of father time.
Though time has stolen our physical youth, when I get with my brothers, I sometimes close my eyes and take us back to one of those days when we piled in our white Electra 225 and hit the road. And as we make our way down the highway, we popped in an eight track tape, cranked the volume as high as it will go, let the four windows down, and jam along to the sounds of War singing, “Me and Baby Brother.”
