While I grew up with a hard-to-explain-but-generally-greater-than-ten number of siblings, “J”, the brother closest to me in age by a long shot, was by far the most influential.
Of course, it was a whole mixed bag of “influential,” and a Dear Reader might be inclined to think it might be heavy on the side of the “bad influence” variety of influential. But to be fair to J, those make the most interesting stories, and I don’t talk as much about the good influence he was on me.
Now it’s ironic that I go through all that trouble to make that distinction, when today’s lesson isn’t really concerned with the more typical good/bad influence trope.
I’m thinking more of how certain experiences involving him have shaped and molded me in ways that persist to this day. It’s a peek inside my core programming, and a reflection on the skinny little fingers that punched that code into my system.
I remember when J & I were growing up in the sleepy little hamlet of Richfield, we would often go two doors down to the neighbor’s house to play baseball.
Well, that statement’s a little misleading. There was no neighbor because there was no house. But where the house used to be was the rectangular outline where the foundation had been, and for our purposes, was a more-than-adequate baseball diamond.
J, being the older brother, always insisted on being at-bat first. Me, being the younger brother, had no vote in the matter, so I always found myself pitching.
We would play for as long as it took to meet the three-outs threshold for an inning, but seeing as how there was only one player on each time, we had an array of arbitrary modifications to the official baseball rules. And one thing I remember for sure was that the net effect of all our custom rules did not favor the pitching team.
What I’m trying to say is that I had to work my ass off just to get 3 outs and earn my turn at-bat.
So you can imagine the heartbreak I endured when, almost without fail, when it came my turn to have fun and step up to the plate, J somehow came down with a case of the boredoms and decided he was done playing ball for the day.
Without. Fail.
Every. ----- Time.
At this point you may be wondering whether he was a bad older brother,1Also referred to as a typical older brother. or I was a ----- fool for repeatedly trusting him when I had more than enough historical data to accurately predict that I wasn’t going to get my turn.
Honestly, I’m not sure which is the more accurate description of the situation.
But I do know this: after all those ----- half-inning baseball games, I’ve grown up to really value the combination of justice and equality.
Ha. Justice and equality.
That’s the euphemistic way of saying, “I swear to god, if I hold up my end of the bargain but you don’t hold up yours, I’m going to find a bat and make up for all those lost innings all over your sorry ass.”
J.K. Kidding. I don’t advocate violence. But situations like that will get me fired up in an instant.
The point of the story is that even in the little things in life, be true to your word–your transactional promises, explicit or implied, carry weight. Sometimes they may not seem like much to you, but you can never tell when you might be scarring your little brother for life.
Womp. Womp. Womp!
Content created on: 19 February 2020 (Wednesday)
Footnotes & References:
you aren’t the only one.