Golden Boy

In an effort to shield my big brother, who is quite possibly one of the greatest men I know, I have not written too much about him but this story has to be told. Those if you who know our family, will not find any of this as out of the ordinary but I think it sums up our crew.

For as long as I can remember, every Easter, my parents would pack up my brother and I and we would spend the week in some tropical paradise. Our little family of four would eat together, swim together, share books on the beach and what I remember most is how much we laughed on these trips. The first year my brother went off to college, I know my Mom worried that our Easter getaways would disintegrate and that her baby boy would want to do spring break with his new college buddies. When my bro came home for Christmas, I think he got my Mom a college sweatshirt but the best gift he gave her was when he asked what the dates were that we were all going on vacation. She was on a cloud the rest of the day and I will admit, I was very excited that our crew was still intact, my brother still didn’t consider me an annoying little sister, and we were all looking forward to some spring break fun.

My Dad made all the arrangements. My brother would fly down to NJ and the 3 of us would meet him at the airport so that all four if us could be on the same plane to the tropical getaway.

Being former military, my Dad has a very regimented travel routine. I always saw the logic in his way – orderly packing, carry-on only, arrive 1.5 hours ahead of time, identification and boarding pass in pant pocket, hussle through security, set up a base point at the gate then go to the bathroom, get food etc., be first on the plane for maximum overhead space, schmooze the counter personnel to see about upgrading…all makes perfect sense. My Mom and brother were more free spirits. We would be in check in line for 30 minutes, finally get to the counter and my Mom would then start searching for her passport. She sought out restrooms at the worst possible time, and my brother walked slower than a snail and was easily distracted if a basketball game was playing on some tv somewhere in the terminal. Lucky for us, my Dad stands head and shoulders above most crowds so he could bellow for us and we could fall in line. We always got to where we needed to be. A well-oiled machine, each with our roles.

So, back to this particular trip – the first one that we didn’t leave the house all together.

My Mom, Dad and I arrive per our usual routine. We arrive at our gate, set up base camp and await my brother’s arrival. We had checked the monitors and knew that his plane had arrived, we had 30 minutes before boarding so all was right in the world. As every minute ticked by that my brother didn’t appear, my Mom grew frantic. He wasn’t answering his cell phone, we had no messages saying he wasn’t making it. My Mom declared that none of us were getting on the plane without Brian. Umm, that sounded like I was going to miss my vacation. Ugh. My Dad wanted us to board and get the precious overhead space figuring Brian would show up but my Mom wouldn’t hear of it.

The boarding process begins and my Mom is on the verge of tears and my Dad is growing frustrated as people board before us. We hear some commotion in the walkway of the terminal. Some people start to board our plane complaining that some kid on a skateboard is flying through the airport, he has a backpack with sneakers swinging off of it and is weaving in and out of crowds. My Dad grumbles to my Mom, “Who would do that?” My Mom’s frown turns upside down and she and I both answer, “Golden Boy.”

Five minutes later, my brother slides into our gate, flips his skateboard up and shoves it in his backpack – the one with sneakers swinging around. “Hey guys, ready to go? I was watching a game and lost track of time. You didn’t have to wait for me, I was going to make it.” You see, things always work out for my brother, he walks the golden path. My Dad, who had just minutes earlier decided whoever was skateboarding through the airport was a rude punk just laughed and said, “glad you could make it. Way to be innovative.”

That kid is a modern day Ferris Bueller.