The Older Brother!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:                   The Older Brother!

He was Larger Than Life in so many ways.  Bold, brash,  loud, boisterous, full of fun, funny, a comedic presence, an exceptional talent!  He lived and loved his remarkably full life.  He acted in plays, including several theatrical musical productions.  He sang loudly, energetically.  He loved his family unconditionally, all six of them, Jaynie and five exceptional children, his life, his many friends, cribbage, pool, his work, his teaching adventures imparting his engineering knowledge and skill, until retirement at last beckoned.  He painted, he sculpted, he built things -- furniture, cribbage boards and so much more, even a sentry enclosure!

Walking Stick!

He volunteered.  His spirit was always a generous and lively thing, like a separate creature had attached itself to him exploding out of his trunk like a great,  floating, inflatable bear.  Those who rode his tour vehicle throughout a beautifully-flowered and lushly festooned arboretum enjoyed the narration, were always captivated by him, ultimately loved him too!  He was that extraordinary, that entertaining.  He was charismatic, an original, a true and rare first edition!

My year-and-a-month older brother, Kris, died in early August.  The entire process was quick, too damn quick.  Diagnosed with stage four lung 

cancer, that miserable 

Kris and Wife Jaynie were volunteer rangers at Rocky 
Mountain National Park, something they loved doing,
and for several years running!  The 50th!!!

disease  too 

suddenly traveled to and claimed his amazingly fertile brain, and then his lymph nodes as well.  Nothing could be done; that treacherous and evil entity, like a ravenous beast, eats its way into and destroys the best of us, indiscriminately, too fast, too hungry, too furious.

Enough of that.  Let's travel many years into his past, with apologies for a lack of chronology.  He played football for his high school team, and he played superbly, winning accolades, a major letter; he quite possibly might have won a scholarship had it not been for a knee, a badly wounded knee.  

Number 50, Kris, Out-
standing Football Lineman!

His mother, who was mine as well, saw no real advantage in having that knee properly repaired.  No point, she'd insist repeatedly.  A promising career as a pigskin athlete ended abruptly. 

(Years later, when he leapt skyward to capture a ripe pear in his Rowlett, Texas neighborhood -- the lower branches having already been denuded -- the knee collapsed anew.  He finally had it fixed correctly, but...   advanced age, no possible appearance of pro scouts...  far too late in the game!) 

He had many great pals in high school, one of whom shot him in his bicep, or was it the shoulder.  His gang was out hunting or just shooting at things, both alive and dead things.  Doc James removed the bullet, along with portions of T-shirt, sweatshirt and jacket.  His school pals were not always terribly bright or cautious when discharging firearms.  His family was greatly thankful the lad's aim was not directed further to the left...   or right.  Can't recall which bicep or which shoulder.  Doesn't really matter, I suppose!

In our youth, our teen years, Brother Kris was my hero, my ideal.  Other members of our nuclear family were either significantly years older, or absent or unconcerned or angry.  He and I were a kind of team, poised to stand tall, like sturdy, fortified and determined ramparts, a bulwark against the others.

In the mid-60s, My brother honored me by asking that I be a groomsman in his and Jaynie's wedding.  I can't recall...  second or third in line, maybe even best man.  I can't remember.  Doesn't matter.  I was truly honored, because I loved him best among my family members.  Didn't matter, the pecking order unimportant.

In our youth, in the double bed we shared on 68th Street, we wrestled constantly, every night at bedtime.  We invariably broke down the bed.  Our father burst in with angry, flashing eyes.  Unpleasant consequences ensued, physical ones!  In the old house on HiMount Boulevard, Mother painted clowns on the walls on either sides of our beds.  She claimed we were her inspiration, her models.  (Should we have been offended??!!)

Back on 68th Street...   In subsequent double beds, we wrestled; he queried, could he "toss" me like a coin, jujitsu style.  "Leemee flip you, Joey," he'd asked.  "If I hurt you
I'll give you a quarter."  I'd collide against the wall on my side, the wall adjacent to the parents' room.  Father burst in with angry, flashing eyes.  He'd pick up brother Kris by one leg and smack him, in a leg, or on his derriere...  It happened often.  The older brother took the brunt of it owing to the racket we made, his status as older sibling. We always seemed to wake the angry male parent.  Being tossed and flipped, I was often bruised or dazed crashing into the wall, but I never did get that quarter!! 

At "Flying Saucer" on the shores of Lake
Ray Hubbard.  Dinner and Pop!

There were steel-tipped darts and blunt-headed arrows.  We were "great rabbit hunters" in the Washington Highlands.  Kris liked to "skin me," as if I were a circus target, better than knife throwing, I suppose, but the darts stuck once in a while, and they sort of stung my delicate flesh!  (We tried to keep it from Mother; no need to upset her further!)     

Oh yeah, the house on 68th Street again...    One night, Kris had an epiphany.  He

Another Kris Creation!

announced, "Hey Dad, Joey's in this too.  He's just as much a part of the noise making as me.  Why don't you smack him for a change?"   The next night, Father came in angry as a building storm, awakened by the noise of me hitting the wall, the result of a successful jujitsu-style and dizzying air toss, picked me up by the leg and gave me a good hard smack, somewhere on my anatomy.  Can't remember the exact location.  

"Kris," I blasted him angrily when the ticked off Father exited, "Why the hell couldn't you just leave well enough alone?!"  He must have laughed for half an hour.  I fumed fecklessly! 

The orange crate...   The Lone Ranger gun butt....   The radiator incident...  As kids, we always found some means of battling one another!  In the orange crate, he insisted upon being the "chief FBI man," facing what he believed to be the driver's seat.  Defiantly, I sat with my back to his back, insisting I'd be the chief.  He plucked me out of said crate like rotten fruit, picked it up and bashed me in the head with that "FBI squad" crate!

The gun butt...  he pulled the trigger and claimed he shot me dead.   I "raspberries" him, my tongue waggling, spittle flying.  He used his gun to bash me in the head.  

The radiator...  Mother had large yellow cushions for the patio glider.  We held them in front of ourselves declaring ourselves "waring umpires."  We flew at one another,

cushions bumping.  I flew backward into an iron radiator.  In all three instances, my head was nicely bloodied!  

In each of the aforementioned episodes, Mother shouted with angry vigor, "Joel...  Why do you let him do that to you??!!"  I gaped incredulously, speechless, then was shortly hauled off to an emergency room or, who can remember such things, possibly off to the family doctor.  Partial head shavings, several stitches!  Three different times!  Or were there more??  Hmmm.....

It wasn't that he was constantly trying to murder me.  He was just much bigger, much stronger, taller.  He didn't mean it...  "I didn't mean it," he said to Mother, his voice raised emphatically.   "I mean, it was Joey's fault.  He wouldn't let me be the Chief FBI guy...   He wouldn't die when I told him I shot him dead...  He lost his balance...  Wasn't my fault..."  

On the positive end of the spectrum, he defended me.  He praised me when I incurred or deserved his praise, and he did so often and unfailingly.  I think he actually respected me, loved me in his way.  He was a great brother, fair, lovable, positive, strong in body and spirit!  We had a terrific, shared sense of humor, a sense of silliness as well.  We had such fun together, poking fun at the absurd, laughing uncontrollably, enjoying summer days and water, such as sailing on Big Cedar Lake aboard the "Big Barn Dancer" with its red and white stripes, he the skipper, me the crew!  I'll miss him terribly, already do!  I know I always will, at least until that "Big Beckoning Digit" sends me packing! 

(Dedicated to Brother Kris, and to SweetHeart who supplied great photos and other memorabilia, his family, my much-loved family members as well, in honor of an upcoming Celebration of Life, honoring Kris P. K...  1942 - 2024!)

Humbly Submitted, 08-23-2024 -- Joel K