Pizza in Derwent and discussions about the clothing item called a gourd

I am an older brother. What this means is that I have a sister, who is not older then me. I am in fact older then her, I was born earlier in the last century then she was. Interesting isn’t it? Now, I don’t wish to implicate my sister in some sort of crime or moral indiscretions, but I have something I’d like to talk about. How many of you out there have younger siblings? For me, part of my role as an older brother in particular has always been to protect my baby sister. I can remember one particular time when my sister was in like grade three and I was in grade seven and some boy was picking on her. I got wind of it on the other side of the school yard and ran as fast as I could (which at the time was pretty fast) around to where it was going down and I tackled the kid (he was in grade four, I’m pretty tough huh?) and beat the crap out of him. His name was like Gareth or something. I got in trouble but I don’t care, I needed to protect my sister, that was my job. It’s like Gino Odjick and Pavel Bure, Gino needed to protect Pavel, and if he needed to beat the crap out of someone to do it, that was fine with him. (Gino and Pavel are former Vancouver Canucks…hockey players, Pavel was the really good one, and Gino was the protector, for those of you who had no idea what I just said…Russell I’m looking at you) Anyway, as I have gotten older it has been more difficult for me to be this enforcer for my sister because I moved away to go to college and she was kind of on her own, which I am sure she appreciates a bit, she didn’t have to have some insane older brother always watching over her shoulder. But she had some boyfriend for like two weeks, I don’t remember him, but I do remember being so mad cause she got her first boyfriend and I wasn’t around to intimidate the kid. Now, as a younger man, I made many mistakes in my life. I had bad relationships, I decided to be a partier instead of someone who lived out their faith, and in general I made some bad decisions which affected my life greatly. And not just my life, some decisions I made affected and hurt other people as well. Now I was always pretty up front with this stuff, my sister knew what I was doing, or she would find out later. Part of the reason for that was I needed someone to tell, and feel rebellious, but also, I tell my sister about my mistakes because I want her to not make the same ones I did. I was talking to her about this idea today and confessed to her that if I could I would follow her around trying to help her stay away from painful situations that she could avoid. If I could keep her from all the pain that I experienced, and all the pain that I knew would follow certain decisions, I would do it. That’s what big brothers are supposed to do! Unfortunately, people often need to learn things the hard way to actually learn it themselves. I know I did, people told me, people warned me, but I didn’t listen, I was to interested in being a rebel against my parents and in the process conforming to be like every other high school kid. Ironic how that works out, I rebel so I can conform. Knowing this, that people often have to learn things themselves doesn’t make it any easier to see people that you love go down the road into the brick wall you ran into four or five years ago. How do you deal with it then? I guess my role has changed. I don’t get to beat up guys anymore, besides I know that’s not how Jesus wants me to react to people. I guess my role as an older brother is three fold. Tell my sister what I’ve learned and hope that she can learn it from me before she figures it out the hard way, and I can pray for her, so that God will work in her life to help her figure out the wise things to do with her life before she learns the hard way, and I can be there for her, to help her pick herself up after she learns the hard way. My role is to pick her up and set her on her feet again, of course with the help of God, and all the time just loving her. It’s difficult and painful, but that’s the way things go, I guess people did the same thing with me, tried to tell me and then sat and watched as I made dumb decisions. Now I’m not saying that this is the case with my sister, it has been the case in the past, and we were just spending time reflecting on this today, so those of you who read this and feel like you need to start some sort of “Saved-esque” intervention program can forget about it. My sister is fine, I have just been thinking on this subject and talking about it with her and came up with these results. Today’s song of the day is “Someone saved my life tonight” by Elton John. Elton is a master performer, especially when teamed with his genius song writing cohort and former lover Bernie Taupin. I’m not sure if Bernie wrote this one with Elton, but that doesn’t matter. Bernie was instrumental in some of the greatest Elton songs of all time and so deserves mention. I just finished listening to “Someone saved my life tonight” and every time I hear it, I realize what a great song it is. It is a long song as well, nearly 7 minutes long, but I really love the passion Elton exudes in the track. Beautiful lyrical imagery, fantastic piano, it’s an all around great song, and it seemed appropriate after today’s subject. Although it’s not really all that applicable to the situation I discussed once you know what the song is about. It could be about a number of things, a relationship, but part of me thinks the song is about Elton’s insane addiction to cocaine. Regardless it’s a great song, and if you have the desire or means, I urge you to partake in it. Thanks for reading, and Ashley, props to you, I could not imagine a better sister. Well maybe one that didn't listen to rap.. .haha