Yesterday was my brother Terry’s 76th birthday.
Amazingly, he is alive to celebrate it. He’s been grossly overweight for decades, has a bad back, and his heart is on life-support. However, he is still amongst us, doing whatever it is he does.
I rarely see my brother because I live 500 miles away in Nevada and only get into Southern California once per year. Terry’s medical issues are such that he can’t drive long distances, so I have to be satisfied with one, brief visit with him when Charlie and I spend our month in Oceanside every year. I’ll be seeing him in September.
I miss my Bro’.
He was, of course, my best friend when I was a school-age kid. We were together a lot, did stupid things together, and had a little gang of buddies in the neighborhood that got into a bit of innocent fun in the mid- to late-Fifties.
Terry was bigger than the other kids in the neighborhood and pushed his weight around a bit. Being his younger brother and the runt in the crowd, I was the butt of many neighborhood jokes and my brother would occasionally mistreat me in front of everyone just to show them what a bigshot he was, I guess. I wouldn’t say that I was a human punching bag, but Terry found opportunities to get physical with me whenever his ego needed a boost.
I was pretty resentful of this role until my brother took on some bullies one day on my behalf down at the local golf course. Our neighborhood group was making some small change by finding and selling golf balls, and the interlopers accosted me and told me to take a hike or else. When I told Terry about it, he became a man possessed, chased after the punks, and put them in their place. I was so proud of him, and it seemed that he felt pretty good about it, too.
It was a turning point in our relationship. I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time.
My Dad, a Ford mechanic, relocated our family to the Santa Cruz area to try his hand at running a gas station/auto repair shop. Terry and I had great times up there in the redwood forests, exploring, shooting BB’s at every living thing, camping overnight in the woods, etc. It was paradise for us. Unfortunately, my Dad lost his lease at the gas station after a year.
After Santa Cruz, our family returned to So Calif, eventually moving into a new house. The home was still in Monterey Park, where we had grown up and where our buddies were, but it was in a different school district. With some finagling, we found a way to attend schools in the Montebello School District with our old neighborhood friends. Terry was a freshman in high school and I was in eighth grade.
Then, my brother did something that changed our lives forever: he got kicked out of school.
I believe there were two fights that he got into, one a dust-up with a Mexican guy and the other a towel-snapping contest with a friend in the boy’s locker room. Minor scrapes, for sure, but the District appears to have had a “two-strike, you’re out!” policy, particularly when they found out that Terry didn’t live within the District. The upshot of the drama was that both of us had to enroll in our correct (Alhambra) school district: Terry went to Mark Keppel High School and I went to Garvey Intermediate School.
The downside of this disaster was that we got separated from our boyhood buddies and were unable to continue our watersports careers (competitive swimming and, potentially, water polo) because there was no swim pool/swimming program at Mark Keppel H.S. So, we had to satisfy ourselves with summertime swimming (regional swim meets) and occasional trips to the beach with our old friends.
Terry was a football player in high school and was also into shop classes, particularly electronics. His goal was, I think, law enforcement. I was a basketball player and a cross country runner, while planning to go to college after high school. We were on separate orbits, for sure.
My brother, who was no dummy but was not a serious student at the time, changed completely when he got a girlfriend (“Kay”) in his senior year. He got serious about her and also about his studies, and became a pal of Kay’s father, who was an extremely successful businessowner in Los Angeles. Terry eventually joined the Air Force (becoming an Air Policeman), married Kay, later left the Air Force, and went into business with his father-in-law’s guidance and assistance. Terry eventually owned and operated a tool rental business, made a crapload of money, and invested much of it wisely in real estate. Kay pursued a career in child development and education, eventually getting a PhD, I believe.
Just think: If it weren’t for that locker room towel-snapping “fight” with his friend at Montebello H.S., Terry would never have met Kay and, most likely, never would have become a millionaire. He would most likely have been a policemen or Highway Patrolman, working in the public sector for “peanuts”. (And, of course, I would never have gone to my Senior Prom, because my sister-in-law-to-be Kay arranged that coup.)
It’s funny how things work out.
Did I mention that my brother was “into” electronics in high school? This was back in the early 1960’s, way before the Digital Age. However, his aptitude for electronics shone through later in life when he began to operate his tool rental business. He saw the need for a “system” to manage his enterprise and decided to take up newly emerging computer technology. Terry bought a few books, taught himself code, bought a crude Radio Shack computer, and wrote a comprehensive proprietary program to run his business. None of his competitors had such a tool, and Terry was able to grow his operation into a very successful enterprise.
Terry probably knows as much about computer technology as anybody that I know. As I said, it’s all self-taught. He’s a smart guy… except when he talks politics (haha).
One other thing that was self-taught was my brother’s golf game. He took up golf in the early years of his marriage, got obsessed with it, and his wife Kay became a “golf widow”, as Terry spent more time at the course than with his wife. It was all in vain, however, as he was a terrible golfer (he didn’t have the temperament for it) and his marriage suffered for it. I think the couple began to live separate lives, to some extent. Eventually, Kay returned to school and developed her own career and identity.
The both of them have been married for over fifty years together, but each does his/her own thing… and seems okay with that. They appear to love each other in their own way and I’m happy for that, because they are both good people whom I enjoy being with.
By the way, Terry and Kay still live in Monterey Park, where they both have lived since early childhood. The city is now probably 90 percent Chinese-American, as opposed to the 99 percent Caucasian when we lived there as kids. I believe that the house they live in is the same one that they’ve always been in, where they raised their two kids. They’ve remodeled the house completely and it is now worth a boatload of money.
Terry and I used to fish a lot together, from the time we were little kids on into adulthood. Terry eventually bought a fishing boat and we used to do a lot of day trips along the So Calif coast and out to Catalina Island. Lots of fun, lots of great memories. Then, we got into long-range fishing on charter boats out of Los Angeles and San Diego. And, one year we flew up to Alaska to fish for salmon and halibut. What a great trip! I even caught a 200-lb “barndoor” halibut.
This was many years ago, around the time that I retired. I was expecting my brother, who had oodles of money by then, to retire soon so that we could fish and travel together. But, alas, he didn’t retire but, instead, worked another five years or so. That window of opportunity closed, my brother developed health issues, and the dreams of us doing things together in our Golden Years faded quickly.
Terry is now disabled with his back and heart issues. He cannot golf, fish, or travel, and has to satisfy himself with his daily coffee with friends, his computers, and an occasional nice meal at a good restaurant.
And yet, he seems to be in a pretty good mood whenever I see him, talk to him, or text him. We’ll probably have a nice lunch somewhere in September when I see him.
I love my Bro’ and cherish the times when I get to see him and share stories.
And thank him for snapping that towel! Because having to go to Garvey Middle School on the bus gave me a chance to buddy-up with my new neighbor “Pat” Freemon, who turned out to be my best friend in high school. Pat was later Best Man at my wedding, as I was at his. The four of us (the two couples) skied together, cruised together, and had a lot of good times before relocating to different areas.
Thanks, again, Bro’!