Happy Birthday Little Brother

In this picture, once again, Mark had backed me up, something he's been doing our whole life together.  The Texas Cattle Company Manager had just refused to give me my free birthday steak, and Marky shot him.  Right through the forehead.  Hey, if you're going to act all old West with your name and motif, then you'd better not act all surprised if people show up with big mustaches and shoot you for crawfishing on a deal. 

Or using words like "crawfish" as a verb.

Just one example of how (as they said in "Tombstone") "you always back your brother's play," involved a bottle of bourbon.  My grandfather was a sportswriter and bourbon aficionado (can you be the former without being the latter?), and whenever he visited, he'd purchase a bottle of bourbon at our local liquor store, enjoy a few cocktails during his stay, then leave the rest here for next time.  Well, he came down to cover the Super Bowl one year, and that was it--there was no next time.  So there was a largely full bottle of bourbon in the pantry.  My mom had a pumpkin pie recipe which called for one teaspoon of bourbon.  She would thus use a teaspoon of my grandfather's bourbon every Thanksgiving and Christmas when she made pumpkin pies.  In addition to certain verbal skills, I very definitely inherited the bourbon aficionado gene from my grandfather.  So late one Christmas Eve, ma and pa were nestled all snug in their bed, and little brother and I were pillaging the kitchen for roast beast and Lord knows what else, when I spied with my thirsty bloodshot eye a bottle of bourbon! Yay! Mark pointed out correctly that there was a finite, irreplaceable quantity of bourbon in the bottle.  I said, "Well, we could just say it evaporated." He rolled his eyes, and continued piling four pounds of leftovers on his sandwich. 

The next day, I heard my mom and brother banging around in the kitchen.  My mom asked my brother to get "Papaw's bourbon" out of the pantry.  I froze. 

"Boy, it looks like it's gone down a lot since last year."
"Yeah, it does.  But the cap is loose.  It probably evaporated."

God bless you, little brother!

Anyway, I could go on with other stories, but I won't.  Suffice to say, there are far more instances of him covering my ass than stabbing me in the back.  In the great brother algebra, that's the best you can hope for.  Thanks, #2.  And have a happy one. 

Here's one more picture from back when Our Father was teaching him how to drive.  (Sorry, little bro: the expression on dad's face is too priceless) ;-)