Happy Bear-th Day

Polaroid from the Natural History Museum. More pictures here.

As usual, there are a great deal of things I could wax philosophically on today, but I will have to settle on the day's most IMPORTANT EVENT: 34 years ago, my step-brother or brother or hippie patchwork sibling, James Joshua Snodgrass came wailing into the world--with a black eye. Apparently, his head was too big, so they got out the ol' baby pliers and while trying to pull him free, jabbed him in the eye. It's probably good that he doesn't remember it, because we can all chuckle at the black and white newborn snapshot, that has him sneering and weathering a real bruiser. He looks like a real gangster.

Josh and I met at his sixth birthday party, when my step dad, later to be HIS step dad (you do the math), dropped me off at his birthday party. Predictably, I don't remember the birthday boy at all, but I DO remember the choo choo train made of different birthday cakes. I had chocolate chip, with chocolate chip ice cream. Later, when we were both eight, and I DO remember meeting him, I would learn that he was a MASTER at marbles, quickly dispatching with all my good marbles, and a lover of hotdogs and mustard, matchbox cars, and all things Star Wars.

I think I can speak for both Josh and I, when I say that growing up in the same house with someone your age can be both good and bad. The bad part is that you have to weather the same high school, but with no sort of alliance. We were both REJECTS, but rejects of a DIFFERENT SORT. I was a reject, who was quietly developing what I considered my DEPTH. Josh was the sort that liked bikes, and SCIENCE, and the same neighborhood pals that he had grown up with. He was the sort that would eventually go on to enjoy studying how people die, what histories bones have to tell us, and the exciting world of forensic anthropology (who KNEW?). The good part is that when we got older, we could actually have something in common and enjoy it. I think of our college years as something sort of miraculous in our family: we all went our different ways and somehow cameback friends.

A couple of things to downright love about Josh: Sometimes he'll eat brown sugar STRAIGHT. He gets excited about Christmas. EVERY CHRISTMAS he'll get up at 6:00am and say, "Gee, I'm not tired. I don't know why, but I am just not tired. Does anyone want to open presents? I mean, I'm just thinking, we're all up, we might as well get started on stockings." He was THIRTY-ONE the last time I heard him say those words.

Josh and his lovely wife Heather (Hi Heather!) recently moved from Chicago to Eugene, Oregon, so that Josh could accept a professorship at U. of Oregon. When they were moving into their new house, and trying to set up the plumbing, they discovered what looked like a dead cat under their house. It turns out that PG & E won't go under your house if you have a rotting carcass lying there. In order to have a washing machine, they were going to have to remove it QUICK. It must have been slighlty ironic (if not downright ANNOYING as all GET OUT) to Heather, when your husband, who has a background in digging up mass graves in Bosnia to do war crime reports for the UN, and countless other dead-body related work, was OUT OF TOWN and was not AVAILABLE to dispatch of what turned out to be a DEAD POSSUM. This is how I know they are a good match. He said to her over the phone, "I know you can do it." and she did.

I was going to post a picture of Josh sitting in the kitchen of our old house, in his Return of the Jedi pajamas, but I know from fact that he gives the worst ARM BURNS on the planet. So I am posting this Polaroid I took at the Natural History Museum, a place he and I both love. There's something about this bear that reminds me of him. He's got this enormous presence, but inside, he's really just a creature who likes to eat and to sleep and to be left on his own to do his work out in the world.

Happy Birthday, Joshy.