28 YEARS LATER

When my brother handed over a misplaced sealed envelope addressed to me twenty-eight years earlier, instead of questioning how it came into his possession, or asking why I hadn’t received it in the first place, I concentrated on its mysterious content. Holding it to the light—the return address: Bruce Township Parks & Recreation (I had life guarded for them at my high school back when I had six-pack abs)—I noticed what looked like a family crest or coat of arms. We were sitting at the dinner table with our parents, and although they demanded I open it, I felt “no need” in hurrying. “Maybe it’s a royalty check,” I said, knowing otherwise, hoping my hesitancy would go unnoticed, whatever honor I had bestowed upon the family could wait.

My brother had his own twenty-eight year old sealed envelope; this one from Albion College. I suggested he open his first. He tore into it and started reading. It was a recruitment letter, June 1980, inviting him to tryout for their cross-country team. Back then my brother grew despondent regarding Michigan Tech’s rescinded offer for him to attend their engineering program; they withdrew their acceptance based on his poor test results in Physics.

My guess: he grabbed both letters and stuffed them into a filing cabinet; his dreams momentarily dashed, tucked away and forgotten. “Okay,” he said, “it’s your turn.”

Using the butter knife beside my dinner plate, I sliced into my envelope and peered inside. How ironic!—Where his letter offered a viable option, a promising alternative, mine documented a past event with a questionable, yet appropriate, symbol. I had registered for a long distance race, and to show that they received my entry form, Bruce Township Parks & Recreation cut along the dotted line and mailed back the top portion. That important family crest or coat of arms?—Pilsner Lite Beer—an obvious sponsor to a 10,000 meter race I had started and finished in our local high school’s parking lot.

So here we are now: My brother, the overachiever, the laid-off engineer with an MBA, and me, the underachiever, the overworked teacher of convicts, who three decades ago wrecked his vehicle in a drunk driving accident.