After a short hiatus, UnlimitedLicense is back. During the past few weeks, the sabbatical I was on allowed me time for inner reflection, for careful consideration and meditation…even enlightenment.

Oh, one thing I need to add here for the boys in our Revenue Department: “This week’s enlightenment is brought to you by Budweiser, the King of Beers! When you need enlightenment, reach for a Bud – this Bud’s for YOU!”

Okay, with that out of the way….

How about a horribly embarrassing story???

Okay, actually that’s not really true, reader. YOU shouldn’t feel embarrassed about what I’m about to type, only my BROTHER should feel a little trepidation at this point.

On May 27, 1975, James was born into our family turning three Stroddys into four, a nice round number that we settled on from that point forward. So with him turning 34 this week, what better way to celebrate than by dusting the cobwebs off a few stories from our childhood at his expense???

The summer I was twelve – which would mean James had just turned six – I begged and pleaded with our mom to let me ‘baby sit’ him, rather than sending us to the babysitter we’d previously been with all year. I was old enough, right? I could handle this responsibility, yes? And besides, it wasn’t like there was anything complicated in hanging out with a kindergartner…

I typed the term ‘baby sit’ in the previous paragraph in parentheses purposely to indicate a couple of things. First, I don’t think that what I did that summer in any way involved ‘sitting’ on anything, or even really any ‘baby’ for that matter – which I guess just goes to show I had no idea what I was going to really be doing when I volunteered for the job…And second, I don’t think that what I ended up doing that summer would really line up very well with what babysitters usually do.

Don’t get me wrong, reader. I didn’t lose my brother, I didn’t burn the house down…Nothing major really ever got broken or anything like that.

It’s just that nothing really constructive was accomplished, either. We’d sleep in until maybe 9 am, then watch lousy morning t.v. while eating three or four bowls of Lucky Charms or Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, followed by a game we’d invented that was a sort of hybrid of indoor football, wrestling, and Olympic sprinting that involved James starting on one end of the house and trying to get past me and into the living room doorway, eventually jumping into the room and sometimes onto the couch.

But that’s another blog post…

So things were going pretty well, except that James kept wanting to do things that I, with a wisdom far beyond my twelve years, didn’t think he should be doing.

I don’t really remember what the things were exactly that he wanted to do, and it doesn’t really matter for the point of this story. Because with me at age twelve – and him at age five – we disagreed about everything, all the time, day in and day out.

We argued about what we were going to do that day…what we should have for lunch…what he should be wearing…

And it’s this last one that provides the most embarrassment for him, and consequently, the most amusement for you.

He came down one morning wearing nothing but a green t-shirt, which doesn’t in itself seem odd, kids wear that kind of thing to bed all the time, except he was wearing his like a pair of pants, with his feet through the arm holes, the shirt tail hoisted up to his neck, and his, err, derriere hanging out of the neck hole for all the world to see.

He thought this was hysterical. And I did, too, for the first few minutes. But then when I told him he needed to get dressed (why, exactly, did I tell him this? I’m not sure – we weren’t going anywhere, no one was coming over…hmmm….) he just kept laughing and jumping around and doing a little leprechaun dance with his butt hanging out.

“Get dressed,” I said in my most serious voice.

He danced and laughed.

“Jamie, seriously, you need to get your clothes on,” I said, trying to sound very stern and grown up.

Still, the dance continued.

“Look, are you going to get dressed, or not?”

The dance continued. Apparently implying his answer was ‘not.’

And so, with no other option I could think of, I shoved him outside our front door and into the bright sunshine on our front porch, at which point he still danced, but it was a different sort of dance, changing from one of merriment and frolicking into the sort of panicky thing a person might do if he found he was on fire with no immediate source of water around to put it out.

I didn’t torment him too long. When I started to see traffic pass by and people looking at him from their cars, I thought somebody might call the police so I finally let him back inside.
Which all goes to show, I guess, what a horrible idea it was for me to have this responsibility at age twelve.

But also shows how DEEPLY I cared about my brother’s personal hygiene, right? That I would take the time to patiently reprimand him about his choice of attire, pointing out the inefficacy of his choice of wardrobe, how drafty it might feel were he to go in public dressed this way…

So nearly thirty years later, here we are.

Run Free and True, Dancing Half-Naked Leprechaun Boy!!! Run Like the Wind!!!

And happy 34th…