My youngest brother turned forty yesterday.  This would make me feel old, if I could actually remember forty.

Andy began life inauspiciously.  He was severly jaundiced, had to have a complete blood transfusion when only a few days old and spent his first week or so in an incubator.

He was a skinny little weakling who spent the first five years of his life sitting in an armchair in the livingroom, holding his blankie and rocking to the beat of the New Christie Minstrel's singing Green, Green.  When any of his four older brothers wanted to play dryer hockey in the kitchen, they just put that record on and sat Andy in front of the dryer as goalie.  He didn't seem to care where he rocked, as long as he could rock to NCM.  Having wadded up socks and undies slapshotted at his face while he rocked just taught him to take the bad with the good. He was such a pale, frail, waiflike little guy that Mom had the pediatrician prescribe appetite stimulants to get him to eat.  Nowadays, a kid like Andy would be diagnosed as "autistic" and stuck in special classes and schools.

Andy wasn't autistic, he was just flippin' crazy, like the rest of us.

Andy and I share a few obsessions; we've both read the Lord of the Rings at least a dozen times, including all the indexes and the Silmarillion.  The mere rumor of the LOR movie sent us both into  trances that lasted months.  Later, we became similarly enthralled by the X-Files.  Don't even get me started on devil cookies!

The first time I remember being impressed by Andy was when he was in seventh grade, playing Pontius Pilate in the parish passion play.  (time out, while I try to say that outloud five times fast).  He forgot his lines half way through his speech, put his hand over his face as though his character were experiencing genuine anguish and then ad libbed the rest of his speech while storming about the altar steps emoting like Olivier.

The appetite pills finally kicked in and he grew big enough to become a homerun hitter and played four years of college ball.  When his eligibility ran out and they gave him a degree just to make him go away,  he headed to L.A. to be an actor.  This dodge had worked for JP for years, and it looked like more fun than getting a job.

Eventually other things became more attractive to Andy than the idea of being a movie star.  Particularly a girl named ViAnne.  She was willing to put up with his career but eventually Andy decided he wanted more out of life than guest starring credits every year or so.

Now they live in Edina and are seriously outnumbered by their kids.  Vi is the seventh grade teacher all the boys have a crush on.  Andy isn't really a mortgage broker, he just plays one in real life.

So remember kids; that  middle aged, bald, mild mannered businessman standing behind you in line at Cub may just be a guy who has taken more slapshots to the face than you can imagine, made phone calls from Fox Mulder's office, been autopsied by Dana Scully and smooched Heather Locklear.

So show some respect.

 

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