My Brother The Engaging Rebel

My Brother The Engaging Rebel, (Part One of About a Million)

            My brother Dan operated in a continual state of contention with our high school band director.  I was not surprised, as the struggle was fated.  Two or three years before, we had the phone book out, laughing at funny names.  Shoemaker struck me as funny, but Dan had better ones.  His best by far was one we laughed at for weeks.  Some guy was actually named Marsman and lived on (or “in”) Pine Tree.  Ha ha, ho ho, hee hee; very funny, and very juvenile.  Imagine our shock when we finally got into high school and the new assistant band director’s name was Karl Marsman!  I can only imagine the astronomical odds against such a coincidence.  It was ominous.  When old Dobbin left, Karl became the band director, and we became friends.  I used to ignore study hall and hang out in the band room.  That’s where I learned to make coffee and drink it black, while engaging in “intellectual” conversations about music theory.  Karl sometimes shook his head in exaggerated drama, laughing about how different Dan and I were, joking about whether I was sure we sprouted in the same garden.  To me, it was just a matter of personal assertion; Dan was outgoing and self assured, while I was introverted and nervous.  The assistant principle had other words for the difference.  In spite of my spirit of conformity, I admired Dan’s moxie.  I didn’t imitate him, I just admired him.       

            Once, as I walked into the band director’s office, Karl held out a sheet of paper to me.  He didn’t say anything, just shook the paper so I would take it.  It needed no introduction.  It was a normal sheet of notebook paper, filled on the front side with what was obviously a student’s essay.  My brother’s name was at the top.  The title of the essay was “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”  It was obviously an assignment Karl had given my brother.  I knew instinctively that it was a punitive assignment, as there were no essays assigned in band class.  Karl sat silently, with a smirk pasted on his face as he waited for me to scan the essay itself.  As I got into the essay, my eyebrows raised automatically.  It began something like this:

“Amadeus was a kid who lived in the mountains of Austria, where there were wolves.  They didn’t have a lot of money, so his dad decided to raise wolves for meat and fur.  His dad was a farmer and didn’t have time to take care of the wolves, so he made Amadeus do it.  That is why he is called Wolfgang; it’s because he always had a gang of wolves around him.  When he went into town everyone was afraid of him because he was always surrounded by wolves.  That’s why a lot of people don’t like him or his crappy music…”

Karl laughed out loud.  In spite of the nearly constant friction between him and my rebellious brother, he couldn’t help himself from taking enjoyment in Dan’s sense of style.  Karl asked, “Do you think he will ever raise kids of his own?”  I smiled and replied, “Sure, and he’ll be the very best kind of dad.”