When brothers are best friends

I remember many long, hot summers in Arizona as a child. My day would begin at 6 am with a few daily chores and breakfast. Shortly thereafter, my younger brother and I would go out in the backyard and play baseball before the sun could reach its full potential. It's much nicer to play ball in 95 degree morning shade at 8 am than to try to endure 110 degrees in the direct 2 pm sun.

After a few hours, we'd retire to the house and play baseball against each other on the Atari 2600 game system. On e day we played 50 9-inning games. We'd have lunch and then watch a ballgame together on the television--always the Atlanta Braves or Chicago Cubs in those days. Then we'd play ball on the Atari again and end the day with some evening baseball again in the yard. I passed many summer days away in this same fashion. And I was never bored.

This memory came back to me the other day when I came home and found my two youngest boys, one age 6 and one age 9, outside playing together. The older had a large hammer in his hand while the younger was lining up softball-sized rocks on the cement in front of him. Not long ago, the youngest pounded an impressive one-foot diameter hole in the stucco of our exterior wall--he wanted to see how well the hammer worked. This time, I thought, I caught them early enough to avoid any major damage. I asked them to put the hammer away and reminded them that homes are not for pounding holes.

The older of the two turned to me and said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "Dad, we are not pounding holes or breaking rocks, we are building a replica of the temple".

"Oh," I said.

Then I remembered the summer days of my youth and playing with my own brother. I was glad they were outside and getting along. So, I left them alone to finish building their temple replica.