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My Brother Dave

© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy

My brother Dave is two years younger than I am. He is a math teacher and tennis coach, in Eureka, Montana. He has been a successful basketball and baseball coach, and a super athlete (baseball, basketball, bowling, water skiing, and other sports).

When we were little, I think we were not always friends but antagonists. But, we did do a lot of things together, mostly sports. He was a lot better at sports than I was. But, I could sometimes beat him, if I got him angry. He broke several table tennis paddles. In basketball, I was taller, and had a nice jump shot. But he had more desire and hustle. And he (and the other super athletes in the neighborhood) pushed me to be better.

He played the trumpet, for a while. I was disappointed when he gave it up. Music was very important to me.

When he went to college, at Montana State University, he majored in Mathematics. I was pleasantly surprised, as math was my specialty. I didn't even know that he was interested in it. I knew that he had done well in math in high school. He was a much better all around student than I was.

He watches five or six sporting events on TV, simultaneously, constantly changing channels. It can be confusing and upsetting.

Now, I find that Dave is one of my best friends. I find myself bragging about how great he is at sports. I hear that he brags about how smart his brother Jim is. A couple of his former students have told me that he is a good teacher. Apparently, we have a great deal of respect for each other.


Addendum:

Dave is embarrassed by the fact that he broke table tennis paddles in anger, and he wants me to remove that from the above essay. I certainly don't want to subject him to ridicule. None of us is perfect, and I don't even want to pretend that we are. The reason that I mentioned anger is that we (you, me, and Dave) can all learn something from it. Anger is mostly destructive, in sports, and in life. If we need to blow our tops in order to release this anger and go on with the task, then fine, blow your top and apologize for it. If we can "shake it off" and forget our anger, then that's better. But if we let it fester and build, then it destroys. So it's embarrassing, so it hurts, it is a valuable lesson, and plenty of people have not learned it. We have to work on these things.


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