Monday memory: my brother

Today my brother LJ would have been 61. But cancer got him first.

Every few years, my brother would have Labor Day fall on his birthday. The first time I realized this was when I was still a wee lad of 7 (for a couple more weeks) and he turned 10. So we all had a holiday for him, which made me a bit jealous because my birthday was known for nothing.

I don’t remember him making a real big deal out of his birthday regardless of what day of the week it fell. Sure, my mom would make him a cake but I think to him it was more important if it fell on his bowling night. This was the time of year he was in his element: bowling season was just getting started and he could see his Minnesota Vikings on TV every so often.

We all know cancer sucks. I have a wife and a sister-in-law who deal with it first hand as medical professionals, and a mom and late dad who had to do what no parent ever wants to do: bury their child. And once in awhile I wonder - did the fact he lived adjacent to the grounds of an old chemical plant have anything to do with it? Funny thing: my mom has had issues with the Big C as well and they bought the house my then-adult brother eventually made his home, too. Even when we were kids we lived for a few years within sight of that Allied Chemical plant, and I’m sure my mom cried when we moved out of that house because she loved that neighborhood - enough so that they bought a house two blocks down from there two decades later. The plant was gone by then but who knows what was left.

But if LJ were still around, I’m convinced of two things: one, I think his girlfriend Deb was the one who was finally going to make an honest man out of him, and two: he would still have that list of things that required fixing and favors for his friends that needed to be done in his head. I only got a little bit of privilege and bumping up the list because I was his brother, but I was sure good at putting things on it because the good Lord did not make me a handyman like LJ was.

So today I may have to raise a cold one to the memory of my brother, a man who was taken way too soon. Fortunately, I found out at his funeral that he had set himself right with our Lord and Savior so I’m sure he’s tinkering with whatever needs to be fixed in Heaven. And every time I hear a loud thunderstorm I just figure it’s bowling night up there and he’s stringing together more strikes.

Speaking of heaving the rock, I’ll close with this. There was a magical season he and I bowled together (with our wives/significant others) in a Ma and Pa league. Over the winter, he and I developed a ritual: it was a fist bump for an open frame, we’d give each other five for a spare, and it was a two-handed five for a strike. When one night we both finished with turkeys in the tenth frame, we about knocked the bowling alley over with our exuberance!

And the other LJ-ism I got was the habit of how we celebrated beer frames. Say there were four of us on a team, and three of us got a strike. Since LJ was usually the anchor bowler (as was I later on when I moved here) he would determine this so when he threw a strike in that situation he’d turn and yell, “who’d we get!” (The non-strike person was supposed to buy the next round.) Of course, if the tables were turned and the three of us got strikes, when he threw his strike he’d yell, “not me!”

There are probably some people who bowled at Bryan’s Bowling Center who’ll read this and say, “so that’s where that came from.” Every week I’d bring my bowling balls and his old Ohio State Tournament towels in the bowling bag I inherited from LJ so it was the least I could do to honor his memory. Lord knows I couldn’t outbowl him, so when I had it all together maybe he was helping me out.