He's the "Bone Man"

Brother Bone

This guy was always experimenting with things, most notably: fire, mechanics and Dad’s patience.

One of the more prominent groundings was the “Frozen homebrew extradition operation”, which failed miserably. He would be confined to the perimeter of our yard for weeks and could be seen at a distance trying to get a glimpse of the baseball game taking place in town from the corner of our yard. I felt sorry for him, but the learning curve wasn’t very steep for this lad.

Whether the teachers were having conferences with Mom after school or babysitters running screaming for the door when our parents returned, Brother Bone set the precedent for punishment and took the edge off the rest of us.

Alcohol was also one of the forbidden fruits which he managed to sneak into at barely toddling. He would covertly sneak up alongside a coffee table and before you could say Bob, Bone would have chugged down your glass of whiskey and had a few tokes of your cigar.

In his youth he would fall victim to the shoddy masonry of my father’s stereo shelving and be left dangling from a rope created from bath-robe belts, I can’t recall the hurly burly that followed, but I know it is one of the most talked about stories from his childhood, even though I suspect the master mind behind the whole thing was Brother Pokey, the chin chewing fireball who will be next.

Here’s to my brother “Bone”, the tip-toe, web footed shit disturber. Thanks for making it so easy for the rest of us to look good!