Brothers

My brother turned 50 three days ago. My mind was slightly blown. 50 - a big number. Grandparents are in their 50's, not brothers. Brothers shoot baskets with you, play catch with you, trade baseball cards with you. Grow up with you. Brothers are not 50.

But he is, and I can't ignore the fact that I am only two and a half years behind him. As children, my brother and I did everything together, in every season. On evenings, weekends, and summer breaks each day included one of us telepathically asking the other, "What should we do today?"

Our domain seemed to offer endless possibilities. It couldn't have been more than 1/3 of a square mile, but to a couple of pre-adolescent kids it was a kingdom. Even now I can conjure up images and names of its key points: The Loop - The Ditch - The Hill - The Shed - The Trees - The Woods. All worthy of capitalization.

Two miles from the sleepy town of Carlton, Minnesota - The Loop was an uneven dirt road oval that encircled most of our early childhood. From the seat of our indispensable bikes (sans helmet), we easily traversed this realm. Coming to a stop meant slamming on the brakes of our banana-seat bikes, leaving long satisfying skid marks that I can still see and hear 40 years later.

The Ditch faced a road we only knew vaguely as U.S. Highway 210, adjacent to Halvorson Road. To us it was the border between security and uncertainty. Cars, trucks, and semis would roar by as if from some distant land heading to parts unknown. The Ditch was our moat, sealing the world out. Occasionally we would sit at its edge, encouraging passing semis to blast their horns. Otherwise, we never pushed up its far slope, much less cross over.

Time on The Hill meant one thing - winter. It was a perfectly sculpted sledding peak, covered with natural bumps and dips that we dared each other to go over. Impossibly high (to us anyway), The Hill required hard work. One run down its slopes meant trudging back upwards, dragging a red plastic sled behind us attached to our hand by a yellow nylon cord. Two things always seemed to occur after time on The Hill - red, rashed cheeks (the result of someone's wipeout) and a waiting cup of hot chocolate from mom.

Our grandparents lived directly across the yard from us. As a former farmer, my grandpa had a hard time parting with all of his implements - so he kept some memories in The Shed. Not much bigger than a one-stall garage, The Shed housed his pride and joy, an old McCormick-Farmall tractor. Like a purposeless plow horse, the tractor sat quietly, waiting to be ridden. Now and then my brother and I would climb up its huge back tires and sit in the old metal seat, imagining we were driving the tractor at its top, breakneck speed of ten miles an hour. When grandpa warned us to be careful around the tractor, his hands would gently press on the covered engine, as if reassuring it that these boys would do no harm. A tractor ride on grandpa's lap was a rare, solemn treat.

Growing right behind the trailer of my youth (yes, a trailer - home for eight of my first ten years) was a stand of five pine trees. Sharing the same root system, The Trees were practically pleading to be climbed. With branches no more than eighteen inches apart, we would scale thirty feet into the air. No one told us to "get down from there," no one told us to "be careful." Quite simply, we knew what we were doing. We knew climbing involved risk. We acted accordingly. The skill of risk-assessment acquired from experience. Go figure. But we never fell. Ever.

The Woods were the dominant feature of our childhood. Blueberries and raspberries grew wild within it. Trees ringed the perimeter. Trails crisscrossed its interior, worn to the ground by feet and bicycles. The highest point of our youth, physically and spiritually, was The Woods. Within it we fought wars, hid from imagined enemies, planned elaborate escapes. Containing natural and man-made forts, we played with fire, shared secrets, and talked vaguely about The Future.

Eventually, The Future came and went and came again. And those wistful days receded into The Past. My brother went his way and I went mine. Time apart exposing our differences in ways that time together never revealed. So, after his 50th birthday, thoughts of my brother naturally have drifted back to an idealized past.

I wanted to give my brother a birthday gift this year but I didn't. I couldn't. My gift is an impossibility. I wanted to transport us both back to those distant days when all we had was each other and time and youth. I want my seven and half year-old self to be able to look over at my ten year-old brother from the seat of my bike and say, "You know John, someday we're not going to be this close. We're not going to see each other much, or at all. We won't know why. We'll just know that we don't. If that happens - when that happens - we need to remember this time and these places. The Loop. The Ditch. The Hill. The Shed. The Trees. The Woods. This Childhood."

But I can't. Instead years piled on top of years. Distance became an excuse - differences an easy alibi. So, not surprisingly, our shared past returns to my singular present. A past we both still treasure, where each day started with the question:  

"What should we do today. . . Brother?"