The Golf Cart

My baby brother turned 51 over the weekend. I’m a little over 2 years older than my brother, but throughout my life, I’ve always relied on him to be the steady-hand. To always be more thoughtful and considerate than me. I think-of-a-thing. Act impulsively. Make a rash decision. Sometimes act in anger. Fail to listen. Instead of count-to-ten I say 1-2-3 go! So over the years, when I’m “thinking a thing”, I’ll call my brother and say, hey, here’s what I’m thinking … what do you think?

Is it an insult to say I kinda thought of my brother as my “sidekick?” Because I don’t mean it to be an insult. I think of a “sidekick” as someone who, without there being a “sidekick”, would make the “Lead Character” (me) pretty boring. And as they say, we’re all the hero of our own story.

It’s awesome having a sidekick, er, I mean a little brother. When we were kids, he wanted to play with whatever toys I was playing with, so together we would coordinate our birthday and Christmas lists so we got more action figures as part of sets. A boy, by himself, can only have some of the Star Wars action figures and vehicles. A boy without a brother can’t get all the He-Man toys … nor all the G.I. Joe guys and the G.I. Joe tanks and helicopters and hovercrafts. But if one of us gets any particular toy, then we have that toy.

It’s amazing while it lasts. He’s only 27-months younger, but three grades younger, and when the older brother wakes up one day and doesn’t want to play Star Wars or G.I. Joe, the “sidekick” keeps his amazing imagination and this older brother … me … starts asking for elaborate Lego sets and video games.

Luckily the sidekick was always there. I got a job at a pizza parlor. My little brother got a job at that pizza parlor and, together, we sorta ran that place. I got a job at a boat factory. My little brother got a job at the boat factory. I went to Michigan State and joined a fraternity. My little brother arrived at Michigan State 3 years later and joined my fraternity.

Quick side note on that pizza parlor job and showing you how different my brother and I are. The owner asked if Dave would like to be a manager. The owner never asked me to be a manager. “Management” is a skill I think could learn, in time. My brother? He’s a natural at it (and eventually it became his career).

I can’t tell you how lucky I am that my sidekick was always there. Always at my side. Always laughing at my jokes and then making those jokes better and making me laugh. I’m lucky I love spending time with my brother and he likes spending time and doing things with me.

I wasn’t always the best at being “big brother”. Maybe, at times, I took my “sidekick” for granted. He was definitely better to me, at times, than I was to him. He’s never let me down. I can’t say the same.

I graduated high-school in 1991. My brother graduated in 1994. When he got to Michigan State, I was in my fourth year (not my Senior year … but my “fourth” year because, well, let’s just say my second-year wasn’t one to write home about).

When my brother arrived at Michigan State, I was in my fourth year. I had a serious girlfriend. I hung out with the Seniors in my frat. In a word? I was too “cool” for the hijinks of MSU-Freshman life. All my brother had heard for three years were my stories and adventures and when he got to MSU, he probably thought, “here we go … Don and Dave … together again.”

He even called me out, once. Said I was acting really lame and being a party-pooper and stopped just short of grabbing me and shaking me and telling me, “stop acting cool and be cool (and fun).”

Message received. But it doesn’t mean I was still always going to be the life of the party and sometimes, at the ripe old age of 21, I didn’t automatically stay out until 3 a.m.

In my fourth year, I had the tiniest room in the history of college rooms. It was on the third floor of the frat house, in the corner, and it was obvious that, at one point, my room was part of the room next door but the landlords thought they could get more rent if they split that room into two. I had a chair (garbage picked from a curb at trash day). I had a plank of wood on top of two two-drawer filing cabinets that I called a desk. Both the chair and the desk were under a 6-foot (maybe lower) elevated loft where I slept and across the room, I had a 19-inch TV, a stereo cabinet, and two massive speakers. The room was so small, I remember a friend once asked to sleep on my floor and there wasn’t enough floor space for use to put a blow-up mattress.

It was a cave. Maybe smaller than a cave and maybe no self-respecting Michigan black bear would consider it cave-worthy.

One night, at about 2 in the morning, I’m asleep. And I hear my brother.

“Don. Don. You’ve got to come outside!”

I pretend I’m not there. I pretend I don’t hear my name.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Don. Wake Up. You gotta see this.”

“Go away,” I say.

“No! Don. Wake Up. Come outside.”

“Whyyyyyyy,” I ask?

“Don’t ask. Just come see. Come outside. Hurry”

Fine, I think. Fine. Fine. I’m gonna lose it once I get out there.

I hear a commotion outside. I remember it was cold. I would’ve walked out to the balcony in my boxers, but decided, OK, I’ll pull on some sweatpants and a shirt.

“Don! Don! Are you coming?”

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Yes! Gimme a minute,” I yell.

Now I hear yelling and laughing outside in the parking lot of the fraternity house.

“What the hell is going on,” I think to myself?

I open my door and my brother’s gone. Hmmm. Must be outside with whatever I “need to see” and I almost said, “screw it,” and went back to bed but all that noise outside. What’s up with that?

I drag myself down the hall, turn the corner to head out onto the 3rd-floor fire escape and when I get outside onto the fire escape, I see all the lights on in the parking lot and on the outside of the frat house. I see a dozen or so other Brothers on the fire escape cheering and laughing. I see guys running around the parking lot shouting and cheering.

And I see my brother. Driving in circles. In a golf cart.

My eyes light up.

Because, here’s the thing … my brother doesn’t own a golf cart. I don’t own a golf cart. Nobody we know owns a golf cart. But here he is … driving in circles to the cheering and laughing of about 20 frat brothers and Pledges, and I’m looking down from the 3rd-floor balcony thinking one thing…

“This. Is. AWESOME.”

I run down the stairs. I want a ride. I want to know why and how there’s a golf cart in our parking lot and why my brother is driving it.

I get to the bottom of the fire escape and run out into the parking lot and my brother brings the golf cart to a stop and, lemme say, he looked about as cool and confident as Tom Cruise’s Maverick in Top Gun. Kinda acting like, “hey Don. What? It’s just a golf cart. What’s the big deal?”

I can barely get the words out. “What? How? Where? What the hell … this is amazing.”

A weird thing about my brother and I. We had money clips. We had them in the ’80s and in the ’90s in college. We loved our money clips. Wallets were for cards and pictures. Money clips were for the front pocket and carrying bills. We carried money clips because that’s what our Dad did. And not any old money clip would do. We were very specific about our money clips and ours had a fold-out nail file and a fold-out knife. Here’s a picture (I still have mine).

My brother told me, “we were walking around campus and all these golf carts were parked outside the stadium and we were hoping one of them had a key …but they didn’t. But when we lifted the seat, I could see how the key was supposed to turn and create a circuit and I thought, if I had a paperclip or something, I could get it started. Then I remembered my money clip and when I folded the file out and knife out, it was the perfect size and length to connect both sides and when I did, and pressed the gas, the cart started moving.”

He said, “get in,” and I did and we drove around the parking lot a few more laps and the brothers kept cheering and I felt proud.

In fact. I felt like my brother’s sidekick.

It felt different. He wasn’t in my shadow. I was in his. He didn’t feel like my baby brother anymore. I saw all the guys from his dorm. I saw all my other fraternity brothers cheering for Dave. Not cheering for “Don’s brother.”

I don’t tell this story to embarrass my brother. And if the campus police are reading this, please note this happened in 1994 and because another fraternity brother worked for the MSU football team, and because we weren’t criminals, we promptly drove it back onto campus in the dead of night only a few days later… without blemish …it’s just a funny story from an era when mischief was mischief and pranks were pranks. At least this one was.

I almost told this story at my brother’s wedding when he asked me to be his Best Man. This was almost my wedding toast because I knew it would’ve gotten big laughs. And it would’ve allowed me to say, having Dave as a little brother and as a sidekick was great for 18 years. 18 years I would never give back. He was the sidekick in my One-Man-Show.

And when it ended, and my brother decided to be the star of his own one-man-show, I was happy to have a front row seat. I was happy that he had a new best-friend and his own sidekick and that his wife had a new best friend and her own sidekick, too. My brother. My old sidekick.

Life was great with Dave as my sidekick. But it’s better now that we’re co-stars together in life.

Happy Birthday, brother.