I was watching CBS Sunday morning this week and they paid tribute to Fess Parker from Davy Crockett TV fame who had just passed away. I don’t think my twin brother and I had very many matching outfits, but I do remember our Davy Crockett outfits. There’s a story about Brent making a fuss in church because he wanted to be in his Davy Crockett outfit and mom and dad wouldn’t let him wear it there.
I dug out a photo and there we are, sometime during the craze for all things Davy Crockett, maybe around 1955. Even though we lived on a farm and the nearest town had 75 people in it, my mom was always so fashionably dressed and I guess this is proof that she was quite aware of current trends of the time!
I wasn’t always taller than Brent. He gained on me in high school. What you hear about twins is true–we’re very close in ways that are sometimes hard to explain.
There was a period of time when we were estranged for 6 very strange years. One time I was talking to my friend Patti, my best friend since high school who lives in Minnesota, and I was telling her all the crazy upending details about a guy I was dating at the time. I wanted her to tell me what to do next.
“Call your brother Brent,” she said. Was I hearing her right? She knew about the estrangement. “He’s probably watching the NCAA championship game tonight, right?” she said. “Well, I’m sure he is,” I said. He’s a sports nut. And I am kind of one too. “Call him up and ask if you can watch the game with him,” she said. He and I lived in the same town at that time. “And this has what exactly to do with my guy troubles?” I asked. “Nothing,” she said. “It just came to me and I think you should do it,” she said.
So I did. I called him up. I hadn’t used his phone number in six years but it was easy to dial. I asked him if he was watching the game at home. When he said yes, I asked if I could come and watch it with him. He said, “Sure. How about I order a pizza?”
So after 6 years of not talking, we got together that night and watched a basketball game together. It ended the estrangement. And the situation with the guy took care of itself. He was out of the picture shortly after that game which was the right thing as well.
When I think about it today we’re in the middle of that same NCAA tournament. I’m kind of amazed about how that all went down. It’s the power of my friendship with Patti that made me pick up the phone that day and do what she told me to do.
Brent and I don’t live in the same town anymore. We’re about 45 minutes away from each other while the rest of our family is in Minnesota. When St. Mary’s won last weekend to advance and play this week in the Sweet 16, Brent was the one I called. We hashed over the juicy details of that great game and I even contributed some sports knowledge about St. Mary’s that he didn’t have. It will probably never happen again, but he gave me praise.
If you don’t watch anything about this famed college tournament, you want to go to You Tube when it’s over on April 5th and watch the film montage that goes along with the song, “One Shining Moment.” You can’t watch it without getting tears in your eyes.
It’s one of my shining moments that something was healed all those years ago, and I got my brother back.
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