Happy birthday, brother

Our father died when he turned 50 -- as did his father and his grandfather. Our older brother died at 50, and John has been marking time, assuming that 2008 would be his last full year on this earth. I could have told him -- only the good die young. He's been a good brother now that we're all grown-up, but when I was a little kid, he was the kind of big brother revenge horror movies and best-selling Oprah books are made of.

What kind of brother fills his sister's kiddie pool with turtles and tadpoles? I mean, really ...

He was 5 when I was born and he was, of course, the center of the universe and not at all happy about my arrival. For years, he saw me as the snotty intruder and I saw him as the great tormentor. If he wasn't teasing and torturing me, his friends were; or worse, as I grew older, they ignored me. Cruel and unusual punishment for a 13-year-old drama queen.

I got my revenge, though, with the help of my dad. On camping trips, John's 6 feet, 6 inches didn't fit into our little pop-up Nimrod camper, so he slept on a cot by the fire. As soon as he was asleep, we'd toss marshmallows under the cot and wait.

As soon as the skunks arrived and began to dine, we'd call out and wake him up.

"John! Don't move! There are skunks under your bed!"

Ah, bliss, to sit in the safety of the camper, nibbling on my own marshmallows while John lay there, frozen, torn between anger and fear. Dad took all the blame (he called it credit) so there wasn't much my brother could do about it.

John is an incredible artist --some of his paintings still hang around Tullahoma, in the high school and in a couple of banks. I have a smattering of talent there myself, but was too intimidated by this big, big brother and his big, big talents to try to follow in his big, big footsteps. So I contented myself with drawing comic book characters and caricatures and redirected my focus to writing. In a way, I guess, I can thank him for my career ...

The first time I ever recognized John as a human being was, in my 13-year-old opinion, the first time he acted like one. I'd brought my horse into town for the weekend and she was staked out in the back yard, contributing to the lawn maintenance through short clipping and frequent fertilization. Very frequent.

John treated Shadow the way he treated me -- he refused to acknowledge our existence. Silly little girls and their stupid little horses were far beneath the notice of a totally cool 18-year-old who was getting ready to go to college and become a great artiste.

But I stood at the kitchen window doing dishes and watched him one day. He got out of his car and looked around, seeking out spies in the shrubbery like Jacques Clouseau in a Pink Panther movie. Satisfied there was no one watching, he walked over to my little mare and held out his hand. She rubbed her head against his shoulder and took whatever he was offering her. It had to have been an apple -- I had the only horse in the whole freaking world that did not like carrots. He stood there for several minutes, petting her. Then he brushed off the horse hair and brushed on the Attitude and marched inside.

Shadow was a spooky little thing. For John to have been able to go up to her that easily, and for her to take that apple so calmly -- this was not the first time this had happened. He was so busted.

But for the first time in my life (and one of the only times in my life) I realized that it was better to keep my mouth shut. Pointing out his niceness would only make it disappear.

But the image is the one that comes to mind whenever I think of my big brother (well, that and the skunks). He liked my horse. Maybe, just maybe, he even liked me, but didn't want to show it ...

Seven years ago, when our mother and brother died within a month of each other, I found out that all that niceness wasn't buried very deep anymore. John was a rock and a comfort during all of the arrangements and aftermath.

Eighteen years old or 51, the kid who stood out and fed apples to a horse and petted her was -- and is -- a pretty good big brother. Happy birthday, bro.

-- Mary Reeves is a staff writer for the Times-Gazette. She can be reached by e-mail at mreeves@t-g.com.