In the Blood

Cosmic Clothesline

Bloodlines carry a connection so much more than facial features or personality traits. Being in the blood is something handed down as part of a larger chain. A cosmic clothesline where hang tales of survival, of broken hearts and love’s longing and lives connected across generations. 

Many moons back, I stood in the shadow of my two older brothers. Both brothers only a year apart with four and five years between myself and each of them. Times being what they were, Don and Doug walked different journeys and I was constantly shuffled to a different path. Yet, as any adventurer knows, time means little and the moment means a lot. I loved both of my brothers from the get-go and still do. I also enjoyed watching them, listening to them, for they were the compass of knowledge. What they talked about, their attitudes, their experiences all combined to help guide me as I made my way. In short, they are forever in the blood.

One of the more remarkable aspects of the relationship between each of us was a shared gift for writing. All three of us scribbled words in notebooks, typed on heavy typewriters or carried pocket notebooks to capture our thoughts. Looking back on it now, it’s a fascinating study of Future Wordsmiths of America, but back then emotions ran high. There was nothing more critical than the grabbing the thoughts as they came through the ether. We wrestled with words to define the thought, releasing the testimony as if the last words had been written.

Dramatic overtures give way to studied approaches and all three brothers continued writing throughout their adult years. Much of what was written came in the form of song/poems. Brother Don had a particularly sharp and acerbic wit with a style all unto his own. Early on, he took to sending diatribes, complaints, incite-to-riot submissions and odd ramblings into the local newspaper. He had a cohort of sorts in this little caper by the name of Todd Holden. Todd worked at the paper as a photographer/journalist and who had a weekly column called I Get Letters. Wildly, Don’s father and Todd’s boss were one and the same. Writing under a pseudonym, B’rer Buck, Don’s father had no idea who was submitting all of these vitriolic lambasts. B’rer Buck kept it in the blood.