Twins except

Love the "barely there" bangs look!

Okay, twins except that my brother and I were born thirteen years apart.  It took my parents that long to recover from me.  Not really.  They’d wanted another child, but after years of trying the doctor told them, they could have no more.  They’d adopted my brother Timmy when I was eight.  And then one day, my mom made a doctor appointment.  She hadn’t been feeling well.  “Don’t worry Mrs. Thomer.  You don’t have a tumor,” the doctor jested.  “You’re just having a little Thomer.”  Mom always told that story, laughing with a crinkled up face.

Kelly and I suffer from compulsiveness.  My brother once spent all ten dollars of his birthday cash on ten-cent Super Balls — the colorful balls manufactured from antigravity rubber.  Then take Monopoly — a game enjoyed by many.  He preferred to play by himself — one hand against the other.  Even stranger, his right hand cheated so his left hand could win. 

When he and my younger sister (mom and dad proved the doctor wrong one more time fifteen months later) were in single digits, they took turns jumping from my old playhouse roof onto an old mattress.  To make it more exciting, Kelly decided he wanted to go off in cannonball form.  Only he couldn’t hold onto his legs and jump at the same time.  He coaxed Holly, who was eight, to tie him up while he squatted.  Then she pushed him off, well kind of rolled him off.  Only he missed the mattress.  The impact jammed both knees into his eye sockets.  He had two of the biggest shiners ever.

But it hadn’t ended there.  My brother was a “heave-ho” kind of guy about everything — always taking what life tossed his way, or rather tossing his cookies.  He heaved once when Dad got pulled over by a policeman.  The officer was only too glad to leave without issuing a ticket.  He heaved on the first date he had with his future wife.  Heck, Kelly heaved every time we went to Disneyland.

As a young man, he affably accepted a receding hairline.  Then as an adult, he eliminated the fuss altogether and shaved his head.  Give him a gold hoop earring, tight white T-shirt, and Mr. Clean would be ready for a costume party in a flash.

But where he is unlike me is the extent of his generosity.  When most teens are doing the “me” thing and everything else is an inconvenience, Kelly left home and moved in with me during his junior year in high school to care for my very young children while I worked nights.  Hot Wheelz always found a spot on his foot or his shoulders for a lift into the other room. 

“Do you think Hot Wheelz suffers from obsessive behavior?” I once asked my brother.  “Do you think he’s compulsive?”  My young son could commandeer the whole crew onto the trampoline for a sleep-out, eat a snail on a dare, and force a restaurant with free refills on root beer into bankruptcy. 

I didn’t wait for an answer.  “Where do you think he gets it from?  From us?” I rambled.  “Do you think we’re kinda compulsive?”

“Kinda?” he shouted back.  “I don’t think there’s any such thing as kinda compulsive.”

Happy Birthday, to my obsessively giving brother.

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3. The day after
4. Captive audience
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