Brothers

There was a pleasant surprise waiting in my email today.  The Facebook people were nice enough to let me know my brother, Mike, posted on my wall.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  At first I thought it was some kind of attempt by a nefarious gang of hackers to gain control of my computer.  If you knew my brother, you'd understand.  He'd NEVER buy a computer!  I'm not sure, but I'll bet it was a present from his kids!

Mike is a dinosaur, and if he were here beside me right now, he'd be the second to tell you that.  He comes by it naturally; he gets it from me.  The reason I learned to use this sucker is because I needed to eat.

The last time I was in his for real "Home on the Range", complete with his herd of cattle, I think I saw his most recently purchased piece of modern electronics, a Victrola by RCA, hiding behind the Underwood Typewriter.  Don't get me wrong, Mike is as smart a guy as you'll ever want to meet, and a whole lot more fun to be around than almost anyone I know.  Including myself.  These two qualities have allowed him to make a VERY good life for himself, and his family, without ever once having to sit in front of a computer.

Man, I wish I could say the same.  Instead of having carpal tunnel surgery a few months ago, I'd have been with him, beside a stream up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, with a gold pan in my hands.  The wives and kids, with their families, would have been either beside the stream with us, or in our camp thirty yards away. We used to do that a lot, Mike and I, and it's something I really miss. 

He and I had some pretty good times together.  He is my little brother, and once, with my hands clenched into fists, I ordered a high school teacher to leave him alone.  The jerk was verbally abusing him and I couldn't stand it.  We both got kicked out of the class, but the facts were pretty clear.  From that time on, the teacher's days were numbered, and his career was finished at that institution.  We made a fair team, Mike was more the hunter and fisherman, I was a little more bookish and musical. 

We grew up together.  Anyone with a brother knows what that entails.  We got older, Mike stayed in town and I moved away.  That's another difference between us - he has roots, I have seen more places and met more people.  The paths we took to reach our old age were different, but when our Father died, both of us were at his side, and we held hands while walking to his grave.

Circumstances make it difficult to see each other now; he's busy taking care of his mother in law and I need to be with Carolyn.  Neither of them can travel.  But, one of these days, he and I will spend all day beside a mountain stream again.  At the end of that day we will have run twenty-five dollars worth of gas through the engine on the dredge and will have found five dollars worth of gold in the pans we use on the tailings.  Both of us will need a whole bottle of Ibuprofen just to stand up. 

We'll also have made another million bucks worth of memories.