Today is my brother’s birthday - my big brother, Terry. In the recent photo below, he’s the one standing in the middle behind the chair - with a mustache.  In the heading for this blog, he’s the brother on my right. Two years older than me - and the one I adored and looked up to once I got past adolescence. He was the protective older brother of his three younger sisters, and the adored little brother of his two older sisters.
Terry and I fought a lot growing up - typical sibling rivalry since we were so close in age. However, we became good friends in college and afterwards. We attended college together in Kentucky.  Since he was two years ahead of me, he helped me adjust to school and kept me company on the long car and train trips to and from school. He married Sheila who was in my class in college, and I married Ron who was in his class in college.
He and Sheila are the parents of two lovely young ladies who inherited their father’s incredible singing abilities and their mother’s beautiful hair. Terry is a wonderful teacher who has parents begging to have their children placed in his class each year. Terry often performs in local musicals, and he’s asked to sing in church, community gatherings and other occasions. When I married Ron is 1969 Terry sang “Whither Thou Goest” at our wedding. I just love to hear him sing. I think he would be perfect to play Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.Â
He is a blogger at Alone on a Limb. His blog has a variety of posts - from personal memoirs to local news to politics to education. Terry also has a website that has wonderful photos of him in some of his acting and singing roles. Check it out here.
Happy Birthday to my big brother, Terry. I love you.
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March 22nd, 2006 at 8:23 am
I treasure this post, Carol. Thank you. I love you too.
I have told the story many times of threatening to murder you when we were pre-teens — and meaning it! I love to tell stories and that’s probably an exaggeration - but then I’m in my sixtieth year and memories grow dim. I always follow that recollection with the fact of how dear to me you became as we grew older. Especially so during the two years our college careers overlapped. You typed my papers, for heaven’s sake!!! How many little sisters would do that?
And when you married Ron he became a brother. How I enjoyed visiting with two such starry-eyed newlyweds and cooking out or playing Jeopardy. (For you youngsters out there, this was pre-Alex Trebek!!)
Then Sheila and I were married and you accepted her as a sister. She and I were living in a remote log cabin near Chubbtown. We returned from Tallahassee one New Year’s Eve and had just gotten in the door when we got the call that a Larisa had been born! We just got right back in the car and headed to Atlanta. Again I had vicarious joy in watching her wrap you two around her fingers, and as she did her grandmother and Grandshaw (he didn’t have that name yet), … and Sheila, and me.
I was honored to get phone calls from Larisa or Joey, as they went through elementary school, for help with a project or homework. That certainly puffed up my ego.
I remember crawling around your yard in Charlotte pulling up poison ivy — and a cookout in the backyard and good fellowship with the four of you. Joey and Larisa were having a ball with a fort Ron had built for them. I ended up with a silver-dollar-sized spot of poison-ivy reaction on my arm - the only reaction to the weed I’ve ever suffered.
And I am so thankful for that last get-together with Daddy that you and Ron hosted. (I can’t even type those words without tearing up.)
Enough! I didn’t mean to write an autobiography here!
I still cherish your friendship and love. Thanks for this post and the pics!
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:43 am
I remember the poison ivy incident, Terry! You were my hero then, too! Getting rid of all the poison ivy in that backyard so I would touch it accidentally and get a bad reaction. Love you!
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:53 am
Carol, what a sweet tribute. It is a gift that is priceless.
February 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pm