Happy Birthday MOT

I called Kim to see if she had some pix of the birthday boy to post, as she was looking through her files, trying to find the most humiliating photos, we had this discussion:

Me: How old is Tom today, 35?

Kim: 37.

Me: No, are you sure? 37?

Kim: Yes. I'm going to be 40 in November, he was born in 71, he's 37 today.

Me: No way.

Kim: I know, I don't want to talk about it, we're so old.

Alas, it's true, our baby brover is 37 today. But we will always remember him like this:

Caption written by Dad: "Wanna see me do a George Washington?" 6-16-73

And this:

His post about the rocks didn't surprise us in the least, he has a lot of experience to draw on: Tom and Jeff Campbell used to knock their heads agains the huge boulders in our yard on Ambassador Drive. We hear that Jeff recovered.

Some other things we remember about Tommy:

He liked to eat the turkey leg at Thanksgiving because it was "the only piece thats smaller."

The time his leg got burned by the lightbulb and it blistered up like a water balloon.

Nikki was his best friend.

Beaking his leg while riding a bike in the empty pool in Cicero.

His parakeet Junior never learned how to say his own name, despite the tape Tom made and played for him. Incessently. Joooonier. Joooonier. Jooooonier..........

"Watering" the trees.

The coffee can on car trips.

Big Wheels and his inability to whistle.

Deeply enamoured with Bambi, whenever Kim or I suggested that we all play house, Tom would volunteer to be the deer. Despite our best logic, we couldn't make Tom understand that a deer was not a member of the typical American Family. He dismissed our arguments, dropped to all fours at the foot of my canopy bed and said, "Pretend I'm the deer and I pee on your bed. Psssssss." What do you think he was trying to tell us?

Happy Birthday, Tommy. We hope that all those years of playing Barbies and sleeping between your sisters prepared you well for the house full of women you have now.