Jeanne
I just can't do it. I wanted to, I planned on it, I actually wrote it, but I can't. Too many people have found this blog, people I know in one way or the other, people from church, pastors even, I mean. This was not the sort of story one would tell at church.
Not that it's raunchy at all. Or prurient or profane. Nothing about sex or fornication or adultery or whatever.
Really, it was just a story about a dumb thing I did back when Julie and I lived in the mountains in an A-frame, and we had just a ton of snow on the ground and it was Super Bowl Sunday and I had been introduced to peppermint schnapps, 100-proof, which can sneak up on you.
But I can't. Sorry.
Here's the punch line, though.
The schnapps suddenly wore off and I realized I was shivering. "Man, it was cold out there," I said.
Julie said, "I can tell."
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Anyway. This was all the result of an odd progression of thoughts, which for me can sometimes be a scary thing. I was thinking about young people, mostly friends of my daughter, who read this blog, none of them (as far as I know) being pastors, and then I was thinking about Troy, who lives in Canada (where he goes to school; he's still a Yank, I assume), who recently celebrated his 21st birthday and the cementing of a romantic relationship (congrats on both, Troy). He's now legally able to do some dumb things, although I'd never suggest that, in fact, he would; I don't know him. But he's a guy, and I'm a guy, and I was once in my 20s, and it snows in Canada, etc. So it was an object lesson, sort of.
But really what it came down to was that this particular Super Bowl Sunday fell on January 30, 1983. And January 30 falls on a Sunday this year, which in fact would be today. So I was remembering, and recalled that, in addition to doing a dumb thing, I called my sister to wish her a happy birthday.
Happy Birthday again, Jeanne.
Not that I'd mention her age or anything, although she probably doesn't care but some people do.
So this unbloggable story occurred 22 years ago, on my sister's 23rd birthday, and that's just why I was thinking that.
I would also note that, slightly longer than 22 years ago, I went through an odd period. I'd left college to explore some options, went to L.A. to try standup, realized that you're supposed to be funny to do that, came back to Arizona, did summer rep theater, went back to Phoenix, started paying off student loans and thinking about going back to school, working, and living alone in a studio apartment.
None of which sounds particularly strange, as I type it, but I apparently have a tendency, for a normally extroverted person, to get a little antisocial. Or maybe asocial is the correct word.
I worked alone, a swing shift in a clinic, typing medical reports, just me and the janitor. I'd come home at 10 or so, watch some TV, eat fast food, and go to bed and do the whole thing all over again. I was 22, and remarkably I wasn't self-destructive at all: I didn't smoke, drink or use drugs. I rode my bike to work (actually, now that I think about it, it was Jeanne's bike) so I got some exercise, but I really didn't date or socialize or do much of anything.
In fact, the only interesting things I can remember about that year or so are the time I stopped to help an injured dog and got bitten for my trouble, and the time I was using the pay phone at night near the pool and a couple were in the hot tub there, and the woman called over to me and said, "Sir? Do you mind if I take my suit off?"
So my sister would occasionally rescue me. Once she set me up on a date with a friend of hers. Another time she came over and hauled me off to get my hair cut, always a challenge. She told the lady how to cut it and tipped her, and maybe even paid for it, I can't remember. But she did stuff like that. She was, in a way, my biggest connection to the human race.
And when I finally managed to save enough to go back to school, it was Jeanne who went with me, moved me into the room I rented off campus, helped me paint it, etc. And then I became an extrovert again and dated and did plays and met my future wife, etc. And while I can't really give Jeanne the credit for any of that, I can't really deny the possibility that in some way she's entirely responsible.
She got married, as I did, at age 25, to a man she met, in an oblique way, through me. She's lived in Arizona, Washington, Southern California, and now back in Arizona, in Prescott, in a beautiful home above the city. She's raised two children, written a Sunday School curriculum, volunteered, done yeoman duty when my father was dying and her brothers were far away, and rescued me on more than one occasion. She has no vices that I know of other than maybe chocolate occasionally, although I'm not sure. She drives a Mini-Cooper, and she drives like a maniac, but other than that she is just the well-rounded, sensible, interesting, brilliant, active and nice person all sisters should strive to be, particularly when they have odd brothers who always need haircuts.
She also suffers from a connective-tissue disease, which is apparently hereditary and sounds like no fun at all. I know she's probably often in pain, although I've never heard her complain, about that or the unfairness of it all, of living an active, healthy, spiritually fulfilling life and knowing that her stupid brother does dumb things and still is alive, although occasionally in need of rescuing.
And she soldiers on, has a fine son and husband, and probably is threatened by nothing except the fear that one January day she'll go out to her mailbox and find a birthday card from me and just keel over.
You're safe this year.
Happy birthday, Jeanne. Sorry this is so long. Sorry for lots of things. Thank you for looking after me, for being my sister, for all you've done, and for making it this far without disowning me. Have a peppermint schnapps, if you want. You deserve it. Plus, you'd never do anything dumb.
Particularly something that involved barbed wire. But that's all I'm saying. 
1:10:17 PM 
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