Happy Birthday Brendan

Brendan was born 18 years ago. He is a Michigander by birth, just like Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney, former President Gerald Ford and filmmaker Michael Moore.

The day before he was born, which Jess spent walking through contractions in the courtyard of Family Housing at University the Michigan, there was an annular lunar eclipse of the sun, (the moon did not completely cover the disk of the sun). There were curious double shadows on the leaves all afternoon. We often wonder what occult powers Brendan may possess.

I often think of Brendan as "The Boy Without Fear." From an early age he has shown a willingness to throw himself off of any precipice. One evening at about 1 year old I wasn't watching him as closely as I should. I became aware of his presence after he climbed onto the supper table and started tossing plates onto the floor.

Brendan has an older sister. He informed us early that he was different than his sister. When Erin was small she pretended to be a baby chick. When Brendan was small, he pretended to be a dead squirrel. (Actually, squirrel was his first word.) When he left the Michigan Union one morning, he found a stick and began beating the ground with it yelling "Dah!"

He has a talent for digging that he inherited from his Uncle David and me. His buddy across the street and he took over Jess' tomato patch in our backyard as their impromptu sandbox. Their excavations were so extensive that by the time they were in kindergarten, a plumber coming through the kitchen door asked Jess whether we were having sewer work done.

Brendan also picked up a lot from his sister. Once when parring through the checkout at Kroger, I was holding Brendan as we passed a display of Cosmopolitans. His comment on the cover model was "Barbie!" Another time (now in New Hampshire) I went to clean up the bathroom after he had taken his bath. I found that Brendan had taken one of his sister's Barbie dresses and put it on his plastic T-Rex.

Brendan has a dry sense of humor that is inherited from his mother, his Grandpa Norm and his Great-Grandpa Irving. At an early age he loved to tease his sister in the car by pointing at the window and saying his second word, "Tree!" Erin would acknowledge it was a tree and go back to her book. Brendan would wait half a minute and then yell "Erin!" (Actually, he yelled "Eh!") When she looked up, he would point out the window and say, "Tree!" and chortle wildly.

Brendan is one of the most widely read people I know. If you include re-reading books, he probably reads more than anyone in the family. He can offer and support opinions on politics, military policy and training, the nature and direction of military/civilian interaction, the psychology of conflict, the merits of The Simpsons versus  South Park, and who could beat up Batman (answer: only River Tam).

Brendan is my opposite in many ways. He is athletic and driven to challenge himself physically. He is graceful and fluid in his movements. He desires action and has little tolerance for activities and people which serve no useful purpose. His worst nightmare is to spend his days in a cubicle reading paper studies of hypothetical situations.

Jess and I have raised him to be gentle and question authority. He has learned these lessons well and is an independent-minded man of great ethical and moral conviction. He respects tradition and those who have sacrificed for us, but he is impatient with pettifoggery and bureaucracy. He is idealistic, and he hopes to act on this idealism by attending Norwich University as a member of the Corps of Cadets, ultimately to serve in the military. He wants to be an EMT, and I suspect that he will follow his Granddad Kane into a life of public service.

He is one of the coolest people I know, and I hope he has a happy birthday.