Happy Birthday, Eric Oscar!
My brother, Eric Oscar, has his birthday today. Happy birthday!
Eric is truly the best brother I could have. He’s my best friend who has known me longest in my life. Eric stood up for me at my wedding to Brian, he was my “Dude of Honor.”
I’m not sure why it took my Mom to think of that, because it made so much sense. We were breaking all the other rules about weddings already (my wedding dress was a turquoise silk evening gown, and we had a barbecue/jam session for our reception… the favors were hot pink plastic kazoos with our wedding date inscribed on them). But for some reason I didn’t think of having a Dude of Honor until Mom pointed out that our best friend should be our attendant, and Eric qualified. And How!
Eric knows me very well. I tend to have emotional ups and downs, which sometimes gets me stuck where I don’t know what to do next. I can call my brother, talk to him for a few minutes, and he’ll ask me a few questions. And after those few questions, I know what to do. What a friend he is.
Eric is about a year and a half younger than me (we were 2 years apart in school). He is my younger brother but has not been my “little” brother for decades. He looks like the Swedish side of the family as far as we can tell, and I look like the English side. He looks very much the viking, with a slightly reddish beard and gray-blonde hair… wide hands, wide feet. He is not tall, but he is tall in comparison to other men in our family – my dad was not quite 5’6″ and he was the tallest of the three brothers.
My favorite story to tell of our relationship is this: I used to sit on his back and beat him up, when we were very very young. However, somewhere in late elementary school he started to outweigh me. Once he could sit on *me,* we got along just fine, thank you very much! The diplomat in me came out very quickly when it was clear that I could not win. That was the last time I ever tried to solve anything with physical means, probably a blessing. Fortunately, it’s not Eric’s style to solve things that way either.
My father was a man who believed girls should not have to learn to fix things. He did teach Eric how to do tasks such as wire light fixtures and other dangerous or messy tasks. He would teach me the theory of electrical circuits, by building me a board with batteries and light bulbs and switches, but I was not allowed to crawl in the crawl space or work with real wiring. Eric learned a lot of carpentry, some electrical and plumbing, and an assortment of other handy skills.
Since Daddy died, Eric has worked hard to teach me things he learned from Dad, so I could be more self-reliant and independent. He buys me power tools for Christmas! It was Eric who one day, when I called him about a computer problem, said “Do you have a screwdriver? Let’s open up the case on this computer and see if we can figure this out.” And thus, over a long-distance phone call, a techie was born. I don’t love fixing computer hardware, but it is a very good skill to have in a pinch. Thanks, Eric!