Rusty, aka Russ, is 50

My brother turned 50 this weekend. The big 5.0. The halfway mark, so to speak if we are lucky. Or not. Prior to the big day, he made some changes. He went back to working out. He announced he wanted to be known as Russ instead of Rusty. He got a tad sentimental. Check. Check. Check. All part of the aging process.

To add to his turning from 49 to 50 were two deaths. One before and one after his birthday, but both fathers of people who mean a lot of both of us. We know the feeling. It just makes turning 50 a bit harder because, well, we're getting to the point where we are next. Losing both of our parents, hit that point home to us four years ago, but then there were always the second "parents" we grew up with that still help us keep some sanity. Now we lost one of those.

Russ, and I'm only calling him that occasionally because Russ was my father and Rusty is not that to me, planned his own celebration. He and his wife went to Chicago for a couple of nights and painted the town. I'm sure they were in bed by eleven, however, because well, he is fifty now. I thought it great that he took the step of doing something outside the norm which is unusual for him. He came home on his birthday and had a nice dinner with his wife and daughter and then ended the night on the phone with me.

Him: "I think this is the first phone call where you haven't complained about The Condo or needing money for the Wyndham."
Me: "Happy Birthday. Isn't that nice? It is for me."

We laughed. We reminisced about our old hood and the people in it. We laughed even harder to the horror of our families who were privy to the Facetime call. Life was a lot different for us older people in the hood.

Me: "I think Bill and Mary Christmas painted over my fire hydrant."
Him: "Mary Christmas. Remember her? Hey, Gabby we knew a girl whose actual name was Mary Christmas. Wonder what happened to her? And remember Bobby Cokisbooger."
Me: "That wasn't his actual name. It was Cokisburger. We gave him that terrible name."
Gabby: "That's mean."
Tom: "Was it spelled M,E,R,R,Y?"
Me: "No. Like the name Mary."
Him: "We also had a guy down the street named Hal. Remember him?"
Tom: "What was his last name?"
Him: "O'Ween."

The two of us laughed so hard we peed our pants. We are over fifty now, you know.
Happy Birthday to my baby bro.