Thursday, April 30, 2015

My Amazing Twin

Me, Mom and Jon ~ 1956
He was always there, because we were twins. I was alone for six minutes at the beginning of life since I was born first. Then Jon came into the world. My parents were overjoyed -- or at least that was my mother's story. "I wanted a girl and your dad wanted a boy and we ended up getting both!" my mom gushed. A tiny woman, Mom was all of 85 pounds and barely 5 feet tall when she got pregnant with us. But the time we were born, a healthy 6 pounds plus each, she looked like a walking Goodyear blimp.

The first child is always made over and if the first child happens to be twins then they get tons of adulation. We were no exception. I feel sorry for my younger brothers and sister who had to live in our shadow.

There weren't a lot of downsides to being twins -- and I am eternally grateful that I had a brother to teach me what the boys are like.

Jon was like that, just cool. My brother took risks -- he was adventurous where I was timid and retiring. He was the bad boy to my trying-not-to-make-waves girl. There was a string of years where he seemed to get a spanking every day.
The 60s were not a good time to be a girl. It seemed to me that boys got to do all the fun stuff and it was particularly galling to watch my twin brother do incredible stuff like join the Cub Scouts -- my mother was a Den Mother so the boys met at our house. Jon had an enviable blue shirt and yellow neckerchief. The Cub Scouts were involved with awesome projects: wood-burning, knot tying, and making Pinewood Derby cars. Once Jon got to make a robot out of a bunch of boxes. I still remember the dials and buttons that he drew on the front.

By that time I had joined the Girl Scouts who earned badges for things like embroidery and cooking, boring compared with the nifty stuff of Boy Scouts got to do.

As twins, we were always in the same grade at school but never in the same class. We avoided each other like the plague there but home was a different story.  I liked the wholesome Beatles but Jon listened to the raunchy Rolling Stones. I still remember the cover of their album Sticky Fingers which had a fully functioning zipper. It seemed impossibly evil.

Jon told me about radio stations that had such strong signals they even reached faraway places like Creston. I remember listening to the silver box radio on Sunday night in the kitchen of our big old family house. "Time of the Season" by the Zombies was playing -- it was 1969. After the song ended, a voice blared "Fifty thousand watts of music power -- K-Double - A Y Little Rock."  Suddenly far away Arkansas was there in our kitchen in southwest Iowa.

Jon with his first wife
Jon married first, a sweet girl that he was madly in love with. Later they moved to Colorado and I didn't see much of him. The marriage didn't last but he married again, fathering two daughters who make him proud. We occasionally talk or e-mail, but not as much as we should.

Jon hasn't had a perfect life, but, last I checked, I haven't either. What Jon does have is what I would classify as a willing attitude. He is ready to help out when needed and do more than what is required.  He faces trials, just like the rest of us, but he doesn't give up.

What would life be like without a twin brother? Far less interesting. I am so thankful that I was blessed with one.

Happy 60th birthday, Jon!

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