We had some fun over the weekend enjoying a beautiful Fourth of July at Brooks Lake in Newaygo and celebrating my brother Jim’s 90th birthday.
Like the song, Jim was “born on the 4th of July” and, naturally is a pretty patriotic guy.
Of course, I think he is basically a pretty great guy. He is the oldest of my Mom’s children and I am the youngest with nearly 14 years between us.
You would think our ages were too separated for us to be close, but Jim was always my hero. One of my early memories was a trip to see him in Battle Creek before he left for Korea, which makes him one of the older veterans around these days.
After he came home and “settled down” with his future wife (and later on, my best friend and sister-in-law Ginger), they of course dated, and a favorite pastime was skiing at the nearby Skyline Ski hill near Grayling. I wasn’t very big, but big brother Jim still bought me my first pair of skis and some real ski boots and he and Ginny took me along on their “ski dates” and as a chaperone to the movies quite a few times.
My Dad wasn’t one to attend his kids’ activities, not a single one of mine in fact, and probably not one for my brothers (other than hunting), but Mom always did and when he was around brother Jim was a great daddy substitute as I was growing up. He even stepped in where Dad wouldn’t and came north all the way from Jackson just to attend my high school graduation in Roscommon.
And of course, I spent a week or so with his young family as often as they would let me and we were all together on holidays.
After graduation, I moved downstate and lived with Jim and Ginger for most of a year, attending Jackson Junior College. Later I got a job and moved into the YWCA (anybody remember what that was?) The Young Women’s Christian Association had a big building and rented rooms. College was just a block away and that’s where I ran into Jack (I had met him on a double date much earlier). I lived there until we got married.
We married in Jack’s hometown Concord, and my Dad, after pleas and threats, drove all the way down with Mom, donned his tuxedo and walked me down the aisle. Jim and his growing family were honored guests on that occasion.
Jim and Ginny had seven youngsters, five when I lived with them and four that inherited his red hair. Mine was only a bit reddish, but between Jack and I we had two redheads out of three youngsters.
When our two families would get together (we lived in neighboring towns) it was sometimes hard to tell who belonged to which family, and when Jack and I babysat for a much-needed Jim and Ginger get-away, boy did people stare when we took our brood and theirs out with us. Of course, they reciprocated and probably got the same stares with our three added to their four or five kiddos at the time. We always kept in touch, visiting whenever we could, even went on a couple of trips together and once took our van, our pop-up camper and a car full of kids trailing along while wandering through the Upper Peninsula. Just to add to the confusion, we took my Mom and her great-granddaughter along that time too! We had so much fun on that trip, which took us all the way to Copper Harbor, that we did it again a few years later, only this time just the four of us.
Living so far apart (they moved to Stevensville and we moved to Clare) we still managed to spend weekends and more together. When we put our camper on family property up by Roscommon, they brought theirs up there too and for many years, the four of us “camped” together every summer on as many summer weekends as we could.
Sadly, those days ended with the loss of Ginny six years ago. They had more than 60 years together. I can’t tell you how much Jim still misses “his lady.” She was his best friend for life, a great Mom and wonderful grandmother, great grandma – and my best buddy too.
I miss her, and I am so glad I have had her for most of my life,, and him, my big brother, for my whole life.
