My Three Brothers

^ Here we are in age order. How thoughtful of us to arrange ourselves for 

easy reference in the future.

With a nod to this week's National Siblings Day, here's a special shout out to my three brothers.

The eldest is Matt, a design engineer for General Motors. He lives in Lansing, the fair capital city of Michigan and you can bet darn sure that he always drives American. He spends his free time mowing his massive lawn, caring for a gigantic Christmas cactus that once belonged to our grandmother, keeping his wife and two college-age daughters well supplied in lattes, and washing his cars. Plus he is passionate about his Catholic faith and a devoted member of the local parish.

Third-born Eric is also an engineer. After a long career in the Detroit area, developing software for the auto industry, he was recently reassigned to Virginia where he is helping to design the next generation of aircraft carriers. He and his wife raised three kids - his eldest son was lost to us in 2007, his middle-born daughter recently moved to New York after graduating college, and his younger son is finishing up at my alma mater, Michigan State University. Eric enjoys golf, Civil War history, building model airplanes, and making really bad puns.

Mike is the youngest and possibly the sassiest. His wicked sense of humor goes right over the heads of some, but his two teenage sons have adopted the same style of joking and sometimes beat him at his own game. His wife just sighs and rolls her eyes at the lot of them. They live in suburban Detroit, not far from my hometown. An IT guru and a gadget freak, Mike is good at making things work. Also, he loves his German Shepherd named Gretchen, metal music, and backwoods reality TV.

* * * * *

All in all, I'd say that my brothers are delightfully, blessedly, boringly normal. Sure, they have their share of quirks and quibbles, but mostly they are hard-working, devoted family men who enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Throw them together in a room with a televised sporting event and a twelve-pack of premium beer, and they'll be content till dinner time. And as far as I'm concerned, that is a pretty great way for my three brothers to be.