What About Bob?

A good way to be an underachiever is to be a third-born child. Third-born children tend to be more relaxed, though my relaxed nature has often bordered on comatose. This is especially true if you're a second-born boy and the first born boy is a real achiever. My older brother Bob is certainly that. He has always been smart, talented, capable, good-looking, personable, and several other things I can't remember right now but you can look them up on his website. I have not been lacking in some of these qualities myself, it's just that I've never had them to the degree that he has. As a matter of fact, girls often mention how I get increasingly better-looking as I'm moving farther away. I've been told that I look like Sean Connery from across the room. If the room is an aircraft hanger.

But I'm giving the wrong impression here; Bob and I were really close growing up and we still get along great. Bob never acted like he was better than me; he just naturally was. I was good enough at stuff so we always played together, I just never won. I could run pretty fast but Bob was one of the fastest kids in school. When we played football with the neighborhood kids they said it wasn't fair if both Bob and I were on the same team; they just picked Bob first. Bob had more real girlfriends than I had imaginary ones, and that was a lot. His most serious girlfriend was the equivalent of the class playmate; she was beautiful. Bob graduated with honors near the top of his class, the same year I was thirty-third in my class. I was often called Bob by accident in school because it was short for my full name; Bob's brother.

The earliest memory I have of Bob and myself was the time we were chucking small pebbles at each other. We couldn't have been much older than three and four, and this was the 50's , which meant you had to make up your own games at times. This one was rather fun, because what damage could a couple of toddlers do tossing little pebbles back and forth? They couldn't, unless one of them picked up a rock and plunked it right off the other's pumpkin head and sliced it open. I then did what we Schmitt boys always did in a time of crisis; I ran around the house and hid. It was my first exposure to injustice because I didn't even get credit for making such a great shot; I got spanked and sent to bed. Maybe it was that blow to the head at an early stage that set us apart. A blow to the head would certainly explain a lot about Bob.

Payback is a bitch however, and I got mine when we were in fifth and sixth grade respectively. We were swinging golf clubs in the yard and I was standing too close to Bob, who had been planning his revenge no doubt for years. I got nine-ironed right above my eye and sent to the hospital in the ambulance. The attendants wrapped my head up so much I looked like the mummy. I didn't get to lie on the gurney however, I had to sit in a seat and look out the window at all the people wondering where Boris Karloff was heading. A blow to the head would actually explain a lot about me.

We've taken different career paths; Bob graduated from college and got a job in mid-year at a high school. Bob was always into theater and the woman in charge of the theater program just happened to be retiring when Bob started. I think there was a little divine intervention at work there, preparing for the coming of Bob. He taught for several years, did marvelous plays, eventually moving up into a superintendants role and retired to be an educational consultant.

My career path has been more like an old trail that a herd of meandering cows made over a period of thirty years. I decided not to go the college and started a Trail of Tears of many jobs, most of which I'd like to forget. But if the jobs I did weren't very glamorous or exciting at least they made up for it by not paying well. Most of them provided vacation time every Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday to boot. The health benefits consisted of a first aid kit with duct tape in it.

But the difference in our lifestyles has dramatically changed, because Bob fell in love with horses. He has several horses. Big horses. Busy horses. He now spends every day, 365 days a year, shoveling horse shit. This is his hobby. This is his chosen lifestyle. And he loves it. We were recently invited to his wife's retirement party; the invitation said B.Y.O.S.; Bring your own shovel. It's amazing.

I've shoveled shit for years. But I no longer do it. That's my hobby; not shoveling shit all day. It must have been those blows to the head, his has finally kicked in while mine is clearing up. But at least I've finally found something we are both equal at;. It's just that nowadays I prefer mine to be in words, not deeds.