Grateful Blog: Day 36. My Oldest Brother Mike turned 50 today…whoa, that happened fast. I could swear we were just kids a minute ago. It’d be a hot summer day but our swimming pool was in the shade of 2 enormous locust trees and so Mike, who’s always gone by the nickname Zeb since the 7th grade, would run laps around the house to get hot enough to warrant jumping in the pool. No matter if it was already 95 degrees with 98% humidity. Zeb ran track so he’d lap the house 4-5 times and then literally hurdle the 4 foot wall of the pool and crash land into the middle. He taught me at least 50 other ridiculously stupid things to try in life as well and I tried most of ‘em—at least twice. But that’s sort of what older brothers are for. He also took the blame for damn near everything I did wrong when I was little because older brothers do that too. Couple that with a few hundred other cool things he showed me, on balance he’s been the model big brother. He’s been my friend when I needed one and his wide ranging and eclectic taste in music has influenced me musically and turned me onto more great bands and artists than I can fathom. Somewhere along the way he brought home the Grateful Dead’s Greatest Hits ‘Skeleton’s From the Closet’ and at the ripe age of 10 or so I was hooked by ‘Casey Jones’. A train song. A story song. A tragic song. I guess it’s easy now to see why I was drawn to it. In any case, today I’m Grateful that my Brother turned 50. There were times I wasn’t sure either of us would see that happen and then all of a sudden it creeps up on you. I guess we learned something about life from each other after all, and I’m Grateful for that too…Happy Birthday Zeb!
Oh and BTW, that’s him in the blue striped shirt on the left, watching me blow out the candles…
