Happy Birthday Marty Boy!!!

Today marks the birthday of one of my brothers. He is the one closest in age to me, he being 45, and I getting ready to turn 42 in February. He is the eighth child and I am the ninth and final child. I am using my post today to honor the man that we know as, “Party Marty”.

Marte’, as some call him, is an unassuming man, with sharp blue eyes, and a Wonder-Bread Head, i.e. his hair grows in 12 different directions…To know him is to loathe love him. I have been ruminating lately of all the ups and downs in his life and I would like to share some of them with you.

He may have been seven or eight. All the family gathered for a cookout at a cousin’s house. It was a nice house with a big new sliding glass door to the backyard. That was the day we discovered that my brother needed glasses. You see, he was scampering through the house to make his way to the backyard and ran smack dab into the glass door shattering it. No, no, don’t worry folks, insurance covered the damage.

This had to be roughly the same time that he became aware of the nuances of the English language. I remember standing in the kitchen at our house and Marty and my sister came home and she was pisssed. Mom asked what was wrong, and my sister said that Marty had called her a “whore”. My mom immediately took him to the bathroom for an oral enema of Safeguard Soap. The funny thing was, he didn’t know what it meant. He found out shortly afterward.

He was given a fine example of love and compassion when he was about 14. It was a weekend morning and he was making some hot tea. Well, he had a nervous tic or something and spilled boiling hot water all over his hands and arms. His screams of agony were second only in volume to our dad yelling, “Goddamn It…Son of a Bitch, why’d you spill hot water on yourself…Be careful dammit.” His skin regenerated a few weeks later.

A couple of years later he discovered how flexible and resilient the human body is. He was standing in the kitchen next to the basement steps. He evidently said something that the “whore” sister didn’t like, and she promptly pushed him down the steps. It was like watching an old Tex Avery cartoon. His eyes popped out of their sockets, his entire body began to fly down the steps, but his head remained stationary for a millisecond prior to following the rest of his flailing shell down the steep decline…BAM!! I was laughing my ass off in shock.

He is very talented. He can play the trumpet, the flute, the sax and a variety of other instruments. He is also very skilled in the art of international diplomacy, as illustrated by the following.

Some years ago we went to St. Pete Beach, Florida to attend a wedding. One particular night, Marty and I reveled at the Swig Wam and a couple of other bars. On our return to our rooms, we were talking too loudly for some. A British couple stuck their heads out of their door and told us to quiet down. My brother quickly retorted by saying “Tell it to Winton Churchill.” No, that’s not a typo, he said, “Winton”. He then mumbled something about the Americans getting tired of saving the UK’s ass every time that there is a war. He is constantly extending olive branches to all. It was the same trip that I took a picture of him wearing a pair of purple hi-heels. Fortunately, for him, I can’t find the damn thing. Of course, I would never post something like that and run the risk of embarrassing him.

Marty has a nice life. He has a nice home, a charming wife, a successful tenure as a public servant, and his anatomy somehow evaded the Irish Curse, the rotten bastard. He is always showing his concern for me. There have been many nights that he has called at three in the morning leaving non-sensical sounds pearls of wisdom on the answering machine. He is a true humanitarian.

Some other nuggets of Marty’s life journey include getting hit by a car while riding his bike and spending some time in the hospital with a fractured skull. He has for the most part recovered. One day he was playing golf and made a hole in one, of course it was a hole in one of them pesky hornet’s nest. He survived, needing only minor plastic surgery. “Ad astra per aspera”, he likes to say. Maybe he doesn’t know what it means, but he likes to say it.

Sure we fought and picked at each other, but it has been oft times quite fun. Marty is a good egg and a good sport. Please help me in wishing the Mart-Man a very Happy Bagwine Birthday full of ice cold beer and warm friendship. Cheers, Marty, and one last thing. It has been nearly ten years, could I have my feakin’ Cranberries CD back…Damn.

And Now a Moment of Brotherhood from a Matt-Man Fave…

“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”

~Dylan Thomas

Note: For reasons unbeknownst to most of my readers, Bagwine Ruminations will be featuring a special Evangelical rant tomorrow or Thursday in honor of some of BR’s favorite TV evangelists…Hey Benny, Don’t Miss It!!