Today is my brother’s birthday. He’s more than a year older than me, which means he is turning 46 today. You know, there is something about 46 that 45 doesn’t have—46 sounds like the downhill slide to 50, but 45 is just there in the middle of the 40s. I am glad I am not there yet. There are benefits to being the oldest, but you do get old faster.

He went through the fat stage that I am going through now and he got himself back into shape. He bought a weight machine and put it in his basement. He generally lives a more active lifestyle than I do. He has 25 acres on which he’s got a barn with horses and sheep or some other small critter. He does a fair amount of gardening and outdoor work. He always was more industrious.

In honor of my big brother’s birthday I’ll tell a couple of stories.

You’ll Scare the Deer Away

We lived in New Hampshire until I was about 10 and my brother and I spent most of our early years wandering around the woods. Being the younger of the two, I am sure I was a pest. He had to take me everywhere and had to watch out for me. My brother has two very admirable but sometimes conflicting qualities. He is very independent. He likes to do things his way, on his time, and often by himself. At the same time, he is very committed to his obligation to family and friends. That obligation often manifests itself in the form of doing things for other people, on their time, and with them.

When we were kids, we did most things together. Most of the time that went fine, but there were times, especially as we got older, when he didn’t want to have to take care of his little brother. He was and is the oldest and to the oldest falls the responsibility to watch out for the younger. My brother resisted and rebelled the best he could.

One day he decided he wanted to go for a walk in the woods. He has always been a creature of nature. We both would go tramping through the woods and see different animals, beaver ponds, etc. On this occasion he didn’t want to have to drag me, but I wanted to go and my mother made him take me along. It was spring time in New Hampshire, which means it was cold, wet, and there was still some snow on the ground. I wore my rubber boots. We had walked only a little ways (I remember clearly that I knew he wasn’t happy I had come along) before he insisted that I was scaring the deer away with my boots and that I should take them off. I was generally a compliant kid (read gullible), so I took off my boots. We continued to walk through the wet and sometimes snowy woods—me in my stocking feet.

I wasn’t wearing thin cotton socks; I was wearing those heavy wool socks for winter. I don’t remember that my feet were particularly cold. I do remember that they got wet—especially when we walked across the beaver dam. I dutifully plodded along behind my brother over hill and dale. We eventually made our way back home, but it wasn’t by the same route that we left by. That meant that my boots still stood somewhere in the woods. Needless to say, my parents weren’t happy with my brother. They made him go back out to the woods and get my boots and bring them home. I am sure there was more, but I don’t remember.

That story is a favorite of my kids. They love the comic vision of me plodding through the woods in my socks, walking through mud, snow and across a beaver dam. Like all good stories parents tell kids over and over, it has some lessons built into it. One of the important things this story does is ask them to is to take a look at how siblings treat one another. My brother and I were no different than other brothers growing up or my kids growing up now. I think it is good to shed some light on how they treat one another. The other important lesson is particularly for my youngest, my son. Listening to the story, it sounds ridiculous that I actually would listen to my brother and take my boots off. I hope it lodges somewhere in his mind that he doesn’t have to do everything that his older sister says to do.

The Mt. Marcy Odyssey

Lest you think that my relationship with my brother is defined by sibling torture, I’ll relate another story. This one is more representative of our relationship. We’ve had many an odyssey, from a 50 mile Boy Scout canoe trip to a 25 mile hike on the Appalachian Trail to “white water” canoeing. In fact, our childhood was really one long, fun odyssey.

This particular one was an attempt to climb the highest peak in the New York State. Mt. Marcy is in the Adirondack Mountains in New York’s upstate. My brother did his undergraduate degree at Syracuse and I did mine at Penn State. I am certain that it was his idea to take a weekend and camp at the base of Mt. Marcy and hike to its summit. I happily agreed.

We arrived at the parking lot at the base early in the evening. By the time we had packed our food and gear into packs and started hiking to the base camping area, it was getting dark. In fact, it wasn’t long before it was pitch black. It was so dark that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. All we had were those tiny little disposable flashlights. They let you see a few feet in front of you, but that was it. We stumbled half blind with our loaded packs up the trail. After a time of hiking we could see just enough to know that we had come to something of clearing.

We thought this was the camping area so we dropped out packs and starting taking out gear to camp for the night. We had been at it for a few minutes, laughing and joking the whole time, when a bright light suddenly came on in front of us. It was coming from the window of a cabin that we were no more than 15 feet from. An angry voice from the inside shouted, “Get the hell out of my yard, the camping area is up the trail!” We had started to set up camp in the side yard of one of the park ranger’s houses. I suppose we weren’t the first to make this mistake. The ranger made it clear that we were stupidest idiots he encountered that day.

We quickly packed up and moved on. We eventually did find the camping area and set up our tent. The plan was to wake up early and make the 7-mile hike in time to each lunch at the summit. That way, we would avoid the summer heat and also celebrate the triumph of our singular achievement with a meal at the top of the world.

The morning came, after the usual night’s sleep from camping. We packed water and some food for lunch—I took a can of beans. I didn’t want to burden myself with anything too elaborate. The climb was hard. There was a trail, but much of it was a steep washout. Along the way there were logs placed to slow erosion. We made decent progress and eventually cleared the tree line. The view opened up at that point and the temperature continued to drop. As we crested the summit, the view was amazing. We could see for miles. We could see other summits, lower summits, and great treeless vistas. We settled to feast in the solitude of our achievement. I cranked open my can of beans using a Swiss Army knife. As we ate, we walked around a bit. Up over a small rise on the summit we made a discovery. We saw people picnicking with wine and cheese; infants, small children and people in wheel chairs all on the summit of the highest peak in New York State. Feasting as we were feasting—well, I was eating cold pork and beans and they were eating cheese and crackers. Theirs was a feast, mine was…hobo fare.

Needless to say, a bit of thunder was stolen from our triumph by the fact that anyone could get to the highest point in New York State. A bit crestfallen, we hiked back down the 7 miles to our camp site. We got back in time to start a fire and make some dinner. I remember having a long conversation by the fire with a nice Canadian guy who was puzzled by American politics. How was it that we could elect George H. W. Bush after so many years of Ronald Reagan? It was a great trip and we came home with a really great story. The views really were spectacular and climbing to the top the way we did made it special whether others could drive up there or not.

That story does a much better job of capturing my childhood with my brother. We did a lot together and a lot of it was outdoors and involved some kind of adventure. Since we finished college and graduate school, we’ve gone in different directions. I guess that is inevitable. The same shared past is still part of each of us, but it has been shaped in different ways by different life experiences. Still, some of the best experiences and some of the things I am most proud of happened with my brother.

Happy Birthday to him!