Yesterday's poem didn't post very well and I'm working on how to do better. All poems are the work and property of the blog administrator(except when specifically noted) and cannot be copied or reproduced without the express consent of the author.
My Brother and the Bird--
My only brother was four years older than I was. We didn't hang out together very much because the age difference was just too great, I think. We lived in a small town in the Midwest and attended the same schools. He was always just leaving the school I was just entering. Following my brother through those schools was a challenging and interesting exercise. We were equally smart, but he had no particular interest in doing well in school. He was a far better athlete than I and was much more socially adept. He was the homecoming "King," and I was voted "most likely to succeed" by my classmates. Despite our differences, or perhaps because of them, my big brother was always my hero. During my high school years, my brother was away serving in the US Army in the Army Security Agency. There, to quote him, he and his buddies "taught grasshoppers to drop atom bombs" and were "mechanics on glider engines." That, at lest, was what they told the German people they met while occupying the banhaufs and drinking all of the beer in sight.
I enjoyed his sense of humor and we both enjoyed pretending we were the other brother when calling home and talking with our mom. She could never be quite sure who was talking with her. I remember sitting with him in our mutual bedroom on the day he separated from the Army and listening to, what for me, was one of the funniest "jokes" I had heard up to that point in my life. It was so funny to me that I laughed and cried until my sides ached and I was literally lying on the floor. The joke was a "non-joke" and that was what made it so funny to me. I recognized the absurdity of it on a flash. I couldn't control myself afterward and came close to losing bladder control. So, enough lead-in and on to the "joke." Don't blame me if you don't get it or if you laugh until you pee. Joke: Two polar bears were floating down the stream on a log. One yelled "carburetor" and the other one jumped off.
Stopped laughing yet? Well the story I was actually going to tell was something else again, but it did involve my big brother. Here it is. During the time we lived in my little Midwestern town in the 1950's, having parakeets (budgies) was quite popular. However, we didn't have one and had no idea that people would leave the birdcage doors open so the birds could fly freely around the house. My brother told this story, sheepishly, after he came home from the service and was ready to "fess up." One evening he went to a friend's house and knocked at the door. As was often that case at that time, someone in the house told him to just open the door and come in. Normally, that would be a simple, uneventful and undramatic act. That night, however, when my brother opened the door and entered the house, the parakeet, who had been flying around blissfully minding his own business, happened to be crossing the doorway just as my brother entered. It wasn't a pretty sight. The bird suddenly appeared in by brother's face and, not having any warning that an errant bird was on the loose, my brother automatically reacted the way anybody might with someting flying at his face. He smacked it. Hard. I think I remember him telling me (but maybe it is only my own imagination)that the bird was launced toward the wall as blue and white feathers wafted slowly to the carpet. Was there really a sickening thud as the bird hit the wall and dropped immediately to the floor? He couldn't quite remember the thud, but the rest clearly happened. Fortunately the bird survived and my brother's hosts were more amused than alarmed. I can still remember the grin on his face as he finally told me this story of something that had happened to him several years before and I felt it was a special moment between us that he would share something that was so clearly embarassing to him with his little brother.
It is interesting what any one of us might think about as a signal event as we are growing up and approaching adulythood. Because this seemed to represent a kind of acceptance of me by my older brother while was still in highschool, this was one for me.