My Big Bro

I bet you are all getting a little spooked that I might go ahead and do a post for every member of my family. Truth be told , I have pondered this idea. Actually, I have thought of doing a completely different blog, a blog unto itself. I have even named such a blog The Whole fam Damily and do a piece about each member as long as I live to do write the blog. Bummer I just Googled Whole \Dam Family And looks as if the idea has been done a million times. Oh well. I still might do it…but not today.

This is my brother Ross. Ross is five years older then I, and/French Canadian, at least Ross was French Canadian the last time I had reason to ask. Good, bad or indifferent I think I am closest to Ross of al my family. I guess this should not be surprising since I spent most of my conscientious free time with him. You see, Ross and I are both adopted, that is a story line by itself if not a book. One day I will get into this saga more fully. Ross, and mi are surrounded by eight other family members(kids) who we believed were adopted—and they were but not as Ross and I were adopted. All the others share my parents actual gene pool in one way or another—Ross and I do not. Now, what’s weird, is that I have been concisely aware of the fact I knew where all the kids came from but never put all the obvious facts together. Each of the other eight kids one could do an authentic genealogical pedigree chart on.

I have nothing but good feelings toward Ross. I have to state for the record , however, he teased me mercilessly. I am quite surprised I am alive today. He has shot me with BB guns, electrified me on fences, hit me with belts, chased me with pitchforks, rolled me off the top bunk of our beds ACTUALLY purposely discharged a fire- arm in my direction and held the huge, filmy, plastic bags in which clothes used to arrive home from the dry cleaners, over my head until air was completely depleted—you know when the film is actually sucked into your mouth when you try to inhale anything which might even be close to oxygen.
But we did everything together for about a span of ten years. We were each other’s best friends. Then Ross moved on to more adolescent and adult endeavors.
When Ross was 19 and I was 15 he went to North Carolina to live with my older older brother. I broke my neck over the summer he was gone. I broke my neck on HIS motorcycle—that was 1966. He came back a few months later robbed a gas station and was sentenced to Viet Nam and survived. I am sure I messed Ross up big time by destroying his bike but that was then

We are both old guys now, Ross is still working and getting round but he is getting more and more gimped up. I wish we lived closer together. I miss him a lot. Even with the family reunions there is never enough time to visit as I would like. Ross is never home. He has always hunted, by himself, with his son or in-laws. Ross loves guns, hunting and really being alone. He hunts every weekend that he can, or he fishes. So, our lives are very different one of us would have to change to spend more time with the other. I like who Ross has turned out to be. He is brother who seems to want to spend more time with me and he is a great uncle to my kids. Auni adores him. He is still a bit of a mystery though—our beginnings are draped in deep family secrets. How did Ross come to be? Why French Canada? And why was Ross so mean as a kid??? And, why is Ross so nice now????