Oh Brother!

well, if you have seen one Republican debate, you've seen them all. And if you have seen them all.... you are a masochist. Or have a broken leg and a lost remote control..... or some such.  It is all vitriolic rhetoric.... and I try to pay it no mind.

So, anyways, I was looking at a small clip of one of them... I think it was in Iowa, whatever, but it reminded me of a photo my brother sent me....

I kinda liked the picture.  They are his chickens sitting out back by his pond.  He has raised free range chickens for years.  The eggs are good. He also grows his own apples and pears and kiwi, it is a good climate for fruit where he lives, in the far west corner of Washington State.  His wife is a field biologist for a Canadian/US fishery commission.  They home can their own tuna, salmon and halibut.  Make jams and jellies, press fruit juice. He has lived out there for almost 25 years... but it doesn't seem that long, or that faraway.  We talk weekly.  Sometimes more.  He has spent the last month recovering from ankle surgery so lately it is more. Growing quickly and playing basketball and football kind of screwed up his ankles.  But he was always my 'little brother'.

We shared a bedroom when we were kids.  He grew very rapidly.  Ended up 6'8".  Means I could not pick on him much. I remember being pissed off when Mom would try to get me to wear his hand me down clothes, they wouldn't fit and as I never got over 6',  it was kind of humiliating.

Uncle John

When he was living in Minneapolis.... he had some difficulties of the romance thingee.  My phone bill spiraled.  When he decided to move to Idaho, years ago, I rode west with him and his alcoholic parakeet.  Seriously.  The bird loved beer and tequila.  I remember having to push his pinto station wagon to the top of a pass in Montana.   When my son was six, and John was in Seattle, we toured the Olympic Peninsula and the San Juan Islands. Slept on top of mountains and beaches, sans tent.  Tents are for weaklings, he believed. He has a voice that rather rumbles up to you with the tenor of a dump truck spitting down a gravel road.  We called him Lurch because of that.  He taught me how to brew beer and learn what good beer really was.  He also made Mead and wine.... but his beer was the best.

He called me this morning.  Wished me a 'happy valentines day.'
He is that kind of guy.

I love him, too.