My brother is one year and two weeks younger than me. When people see us together, on looks alone they surmise that we are indeed brothers. Well, that’s where the similarity ends. We are opposite in just about every other sense of the word.
I was a good student; He wasn’t. He has always been fascinated with the military; Not me, so much. I take responsibility; He shirks it. He lives somewhere between the financial edge and the abyss; My finances are in order. I am a tall, charming, good looking lady’s man; He’s just hopelessly single. (Hey, I am the author here, so this article is written MY way!)
Over the last fifteen years or so, and until recently, he lived in Virginia. So I only saw him about once a year usually around Christmas if even that often. I really have difficulty being in his presence for more than a couple hours at a time, though. Something weird happens when the two of us get together. In his presence it seems my I.Q. drops about forty points. Like matter and anti-matter, I have a brain, and he has an anti-brain. I did say we are opposites, right? Yes, when my brother and I get together, between us, we don’t make an entire brain. And the older we get, the less of a brain we make!
Well, one Christmas he and his kids came to visit mom and dad here in northwest New Mexico. It’s normally pretty dry here over Christmas, but it was unusual this particular year as there was an abundance of snow on the ground, albeit a bit patchy here and there. Still, it qualified as a white Christmas, and you know how magical those can be. Both my father and I have four-wheeler ATV’s and we all decided it would be a lot of fun to take them out on Christmas Day. So we did.
I love this small town! In ten minutes I can be in the boonies tearing up the countryside. We went to a sandy wash area just below a hill. We parked on the hill so we could have a pretty good view of the wash where we would all be riding. The kids all took turns on the ATV’s and it was a blast to see them have so much fun.
