Update... Apr 23, 2007

Good Monday Afternoon to one and all…

It has been a while since I have sent out an update, but here I am once again trying to tell my tales and keep you all up to speed with what is going on in my life. So here goes!

My brother Steve came in from Washington D.C. this past weekend. Many of you may now be wondering, “Who is Steve?” I don’t mention Steve a lot simply because he lives in Washington D. C. and is a bit of a loner. He really does keep to himself and for many years I wondered relentlessly if he was in fact truly my brother. I wondered if maybe he was switched at birth, or maybe my Mom went into a public restroom to change my beloved brother Steve… turned her backs for a fateful five minutes and walked out with “Steve”. Maybe someone had stolen my real brother and left this imposter in his place! And for the past couple of decades we have been sharing our home, our food, our resources, and even our affections with this faux-Newton. Let me elaborate my point… so there is no misunderstanding. Let’s talk about how Steve is a different from the other seven of us.

My parents have eight children and all of them are bright, but Steve goes beyond bright. My brother Steve is very smart… like creepy smart. He actually was invited to attend a school for the “gifted”. Usually these students are the book worm types, and they all get along and are relieved to be out of “main stream” where they were laughed at and picked on for their nerdy-ness. So, off went my brother to this school, not b/c he studied, this kid didn’t know the meaning of the word study. Not because he did well on his homework, because he didn’t do homework. Steve was the type of kid that didn’t take a note, that cut up in class, but kept literally one ear tuned to what the teacher was saying and aced every test. He never made good grades mind you. You cant make good grades when you don’t turn any homework assignments or do any of the out of class projects. Steve did prove though, that if you make a perfect score on every test that you could pass, and that is what he did… pass. So they had a test that they administered to all the kids in DISD, and there was Steve score sitting at the tippy-top of the heap… perfect or damn close! Anyway, they invited Steve to this school and all the nerds were too. Unfortunately for the nerds there serene environment had changed with the introduction of Steve. Steve loves to pick on people, and he is masterful at it. These poor kids didn’t know what hit them. He was finally invited to leave the school, and he did so gladly… and returned to the main stream where he literally coasted until he was 18 and graduated. He didn’t graduate with honors, or with a 4.0, but he didn’t graduate without ever cracking a book!

All of the children in my family have big personalities, this is what I have been told. We are all extremely comfortable talking to strangers and adapting to new people and different environments. But Steve was a little different when it came to that. Steve did NOT like talking to strangers, and it was something that he would go to great lengths to avoid. We would get school supply lists during the first week of classes, and my mother wanting to optimize her time would ask us to call Landtrips (a little store around the corner that has been driven out of business thanks to Wal-Mart) and see if they have all the things on our list. Steve did not want to call, because he didn’t know those people. His solution was simple and profitable! He would pay me and my brother Mark a dollar a phone call to track down all of his school supplies. It was a great little business while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end.

Steve was also the most stubborn person my mother and father have ever come in to contact with. He would literally stand his ground come hell or high water. Steve wouldn’t take medicine if he didn’t like the taste of it. He could be dying of Antrax and if he didn’t like the taste of the medicine he would opt for death. Steve wasn’t going to attend his own high school graduation, an event in which several family members had flown into town attend. It wasn’t until my brother John took him out to the proverbial wood shed that he decided to go. One evening my mother made liver and onions (a favorite meal of my dad’s) and we were all told that if we didn’t want to eat it we could go to bed. All of us tried to grit our teeth and get through the meal, we had our fingers clasped around our noses hoping to taste as little as possible, but not Steve. Steve took one look at his plate, and he addressed to the table “Good night!” Went to his room, got on his PJ’s and went to bed… it was 6:30pm. This is one of hundreds of examples…

All the while growing up there were other little things that Steve did that nobody else did, and I don’t mean nobody in my family, I mean nobody in our neighborhood, school, surrounding area. Steve loved to watch painting shows. You know the ones I am talking about… they are on PBS. The guy with the big hair and then there is the Cajun guy with the “almighty brush”. Steve loved these shows, couldn’t get enough of them, and would make us watch these shows. He would sit there with the remote control in his hand and try to sell my twin brother and me on how great these shows were. “Look at this, this guy is going to paint a whole picture in thirty minutes! You cant get entertainment like this just anywhere!”

Finally when I was sixteen, I was watching 20/20 with my parents… and they had a segment about a man who was divorced and paying child support. He had blue eyes and his wife had blue eyes, but the child had BROWN! He was married for the second time to a registered nurse who pointed out that it is impossible for two blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed child, so they did a paternity test… and he wasn’t the child’s father! That is when I started wondering… Steve has BROWN eyes! No one else has brown eyes… could it be? Could my true brother be out there somewhere? Someone who doesn’t pick on me, someone who protects me, someone that I could tell all my hopes and fears to? I harbored this suspicion for many years and then one day asked my mom about it… and then it happened, my mother told me, and even showed me that she had hazel eyes! Steve is my brother, can you believe that?

Anyway, he came in town for the weekend and brought his girlfriend. We had a great time, and she was great to meet and get to know. We went to Fort Worth for Main Street Days, and that was a blast. The kids put different colored sand into bottles, who knew that could be so much fun… and expensive! Caroline got her face painted, and Claire got a henna tattoo. We went to Claire’s soccer game where she scored two goals!!!! We went to Roy’s for dinner and it was great. I hosted a brunch at my house on Sunday for everyone.

Claire is definitely the niece most like me. Claire tans very easily. I tan very easily. Claire has brown hair. I have brown hair. Claire has blue eyes. I have blue eyes. But the greatest similarity that the two of us possess, is that we are both klutzy. Claire has yet to come into my house and NOT spill something. She has toppled over people’s margaritas, she has had a plate hit the floor, and yesterday she dropped pink yogurt on the floor. I love that kid! When I was a kid I dropped more stuff than anyone, and it is nice to the see the family trait passed on.

So, as you can see… there are people in my family who are really similar and some that are not so similar, but luckily in my family it all seems to work!

Until next time…

Peace, love and paternity test!
Martha