My brother, Don, passed away this past Thursday night. He died in his sleep, so we hope he went peacefully. He was 62.
Don followed me around a lot growing up. What kid doesn't follow his big brother around? As I grew up I got more
and more annoyed with siblings following me around, but when we were
little kids it was fun. Don probably learned an awful lot of what not to
do by following me around. I was an experimenter and got caught often.
Don never got much respect from my dad--at least from my perspective. Actually, I don't think anyone got much respect from dad, but Don most definitely didn't. I don't think dad purposely singled him out or anything, but the 'poking fun' that most fathers do with their kids always seemed to happen a little more often in Don's direction. Whereas all of us kids had pet names, Don was always called 'Fat Bastard' by dad during his childhood. He apparently thought he was being funny. Don was anything but fat. Maybe it unconsciously had something to do with the fact that Don was also his father's name, whom he practically hated. It's too bad. Don was a gentle soul.
Our parents required all of us kids to play a musical instrument through school. Don was the drummer in the family. He spent a couple of years performing with the Black Watch Drum & Bugle Corps also. I remember Don telling me a story about getting into trouble showing up in band class a little late at Auburn High School one time. The instructor was already conducting class, and when Don walked in he suddenly threw down his baton, screaming, "What are you trying to do, break your brother's record for being late to class?" Don had no idea at that time that I had a record 152 tardies to band class out of the 180-day school year. It was because band was a ways away from my previous class and I was a smoker then. I had to finish my cigarette, so I was almost always a tad late. I had to explain the whole thing to Don. He was impressed, wondering how I missed the other 28 days of the year.
When all of us were older than 'little kids', dad had no idea how to relate or talk to us any longer. All we ever seemed to hear from him were things that we didn't do right. I imagine that, with me gone into the Air Force Don bore the brunt of a lot of the dad flak. (There was never a shortage.) Apparently, the times I had called home and talked to all the various family members suggested that I was having a pretty good time to Don, because when he graduated from high school he also joined. Oddly enough, his first "real" assignment was at Aviano Air Base, Vicenza, at the same time I was in Italy! He even preceded my arrival by a month or so. My group's headquarters was located there at the same base and I was there a couple days while in-processing before moving to my assignment at the top of the country. I was able to return to visit him several times during the year, which was cool. Don joined for only 4 years whereas I joined for 6, and we used to laugh about the fact that even though he joined a couple years after I did, he ended up getting out a couple weeks before I did!
By this time he was back in The States at his second (and last) tour of duty--this time in Florida. There he met his first wife, Becky (seen in the two pictures at the bottom), with whom they had two kids, Kendall and Chase. They ended up living in Florida for a short time before moving back up here. He soon realized that there was a reason he left. It didn't matter that Don was now a grownup with a family of his own--he still got the same sort of shit from dad. They didn't live up here very long before giving up and moving down to Gresham, Oregon, figuring that it was close enough to drive up to visit, but not so close that dad would bother them. Wrong. The Portland area is only 2 1/2 hours south of us, so he still wasn't safe from visits. It had to be hard on him. Dad was only decent to visit with for a short time (minutes?), but dad had to be endured if he wanted to see mom. After living there for a while, they decided it was still too close to dad, so they moved to Georgia. Don and Becky eventually divorced after, I don't know--15 years or so maybe? I really don't remember. He remarried later to Christine, who brought 12-year-old Kimberly into their marriage with her. They found themselves a place in Hiram, Georgia, where they lived until their deaths. Don found out, oddly enough, that even Hiram, Georgia wasn't far enough away! Dad got a job under Winston-Salem setting up cigarette merchandising at small stores like 7-Elevens. Well, dad being the NASCAR nut he was would score tickets to the races down south any time he could afford it, so he and mom would still occasionally pop in and visit Don and Chris.
I wish I had more pictures of Don in his later years. For example, I've
got no pictures at all with his wife, Christine in them--only a couple below with his first wife, Becky.
As I got older and became more and more introverted, I had no problem with being social when I was contacted, but I rarely initiated things myself. Because of my growing desire to be alone, I sort of fell into my own life groove and just plodded on without a lot of family interaction other than the usual holiday meetups. That meant I seldom talked to Don as the years wore on because he was nowhere nearby. I had enough other things in my life to keep my attention I guess.
Don worked a hard life of blue-collar work, and from my observation never really got anywhere. I remember he worked at a waste-treatment plant while he lived down in Gresham. He told me stories about the shit that would come down the pipes. "One time we ended up having a baby stroller come down and get stuck, and we kept thinking 'don't let there be a baby next'." I think he worked at some sort of heating/boiler kind of job at a big plant near Atlanta during the majority of his later years. Apparently, at Georgia wages even a 'guaranteed job' like that wasn't much to write home about. It seemed like shit was always dogging him somehow, too. I was always hearing those sorts of bad things, like the time he got a bad spiral fracture in his leg while changing a tire, putting him out of work without disability (something to do with Georgia) money. Or the time he lost a finger at work because it was caught in a cable that was being winched up. I don't think he got a penny for it.
I seems almost wrong to say I'm going to miss him because we've all missed him for quite a while. He's only been back up here a handful of times, usually flown up by siblings for a surprise parental event. His brush with Facebook was brief because they could only afford phone minutes every now and then. I'd like to think that if he would have stayed up this way he would have had a good support network, and who knows--his life may have had a more positive outcome.
He was simple man that enjoyed a simple life. He left us with a lot of great memories. Yep, he'll be missed.
