Brothers

I always wanted an older brother. I had a friend in jr. high and high school who had an older brother (who, by the way, was HOT). He always watched out for her and took care of her and was nice to her annoying friends. And I wanted an older brother to do those things for me…not that I needed taking care of. I just liked the idea of having someone who would stand up for me and protect me if I ever did need it.
I never got that older brother. (Big surprise there, huh?) I ended up with three younger brothers. (The picture was taken 5 years ago. They're all a lot taller than me now.) I am finding, though, that as my younger brothers get older, they get more protective of me. It really strikes me as funny, especially that the oldest of the three is being protective. Josh and I haven't been exceptionally close in a long time, and we don't exactly talk a whole lot, but yesterday, I think he was ready to drive to Austin and start knocking heads together on my behalf.
My car has was in the body shop for about five weeks being put back together after the wreck I had in May. Five weeks is a long time to be without a car, and it was very frustrating, but I finally got it back yesterday evening. I called home to tell my family I finally got my car back. It was Josh's birthday, so he was there and I talked to him for a minute...the whole "Happy Birthday" etc. thing. While we're talking, he asks who these people are who've had my car for so long. I told him I got it back, yada yada, say goodbye, then talk to Mom.
Apparently they'd been talking (I think they were taking bets to see how long it took for me to get really mad)... and Josh got outraged that they'd had my car so long. "Someone's got to do something," he said. He asked why Mom & Dad hadn't come to Austin to take care of this for me. I seriously think he was ready to give the people at the body shop a call. Mom had to remind him that I'm 27 years old and perfectly capable of taking care of myself and that if I wanted their help, I'd ask for it. It really kind of amuses me. I almost feel like I've finally gotten that big brother I always wanted.
In other brother news, the middle one has let me in on a secret. If Mom finds out that I know about this and haven't told her, I'm going to be feeling some heat. (Seth, if you're reading this, TELL HER SOON!)
And my baby brother (who I'm sure totally appreciates that I refer to him as such) is jr. staffing at Camp Lone Star this week & next.

Plane tickets from Austin to Washington, DC, to St. Louis, and back to Austin: $485

4 nights in a swanky hotel in downtown DC (within walking distance of the White House): $600

Seeing our nation’s capitol in style at Concordia’s expense: priceless….at least for me. :)

I love having a job that allows me to travel and that pays my travel expenses!

1965

From an article on a page of The Buffalo Evening News that I found lining the bottom of an old trunk in my Grandma’s attic:

Astronomer Predicts U.S. Will Land on the Moon First
But Dr. Levitt Says at Buffalo State That Soviet May Make the First Lunar Orbit
By Ralph Wallenhorst
Russia may be the first to put a manned reconnaissance ship in orbit around the moon but the U.S. will be the first to land on the lunar surface, Dr. I.M. Levitt predicted here Friday.
The noted astronomer forecast that a Soviet astronaut will circle the moon next year. Landing on the moon requires booster rockets with greater thrust than either the Soviet or the U.S. are now using, Dr. Levitt said.
The lunar landing is scheduled for 1971 but the U.S. may bring it off two years earlier because the giant F-1 rockets now being tested have proved so trouble-free, said Dr. Levitt, director of Philadelphia’s Fels Planetarium….
The U.S. could start building an orbiting “space station” by 1967 and will almost certainly do so by 1970….
Future space vehicles will be rotated in flight to provide an artificial gravity….
A space ferry, powered by nuclear engines, will be shuttling between satellites above the Earth and the moon by 1976.
“In this fashion, we will be able eventually to build up a civilization on the moon.”
We’ll put a reconnaissance satellite in permanent orbit around Mars by 1969, to photograph the red planet through an entire “growing season.” By 1976 we’ll land a man on Mars….
Later we’ll land on one of Jupiter’s moons. By the end of this century, we’ll be sending space ships “to the end of the solar system.”
Pluto, the most distant known planet, is 75 times further from Earth than is Mars.

The date on the article is July 24, 1965. The rest of the page is the want ads. The most expensive car listed is a 1965 Ford Falcon for $1868. There are also planes for sale. A 1963 used Cessna 150 cost $5350. My used Neon cost twice that.

Pauline

I’m home, and you know what I missed most on this trip? My toilet. Does that sound weird? Yeah, it does, but really, it’s not so weird. Let me explain: My great-grandmother doesn’t like to sit on a cold toilet seat, so she has this fuzzy toilet seat cover. And it’s gross. It stinks. I was very happy to get home and use my own toilet that doesn’t have a stinky, fuzzy cover.

That said, it was a good trip. I can’t say that it was fun. It wasn’t really meant to be fun and I didn’t really expect to have fun. But it was good…time well spent. It was necessary, I think. I’m still processing it all, and it helps me to process if I write it, so bear with me. I promise there will be some humor in the processing. My family is kind of crazy.

I’ve seen my great grandparents maybe five times in my entire life, and one of those was this last week. Even though I’ve spent so little time with them, I can see so much of Grandma in myself. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. I love my grandmother, but the woman is a loon. Sure, some of that is old age and some of it is probably due to a lack of proper oxygenation. (Mom said that her oxygenation levels were so low when we got there it was a miracle Grandma hadn’t had a heart attack…as of last Wednesday she’s now on oxygen 24 hours a day, and she’s hating every minute of it.) But most of it is just the way Grandma is and always has been. (Keep in mind the fuzzy toilet seat cover.)

She has a stubborn streak bigger than Texas, which apparently runs in the family. She’s a Lux, and everyone in Springville, New York, knows that all the Luxes are hard-headed. And on top of that she’s unbelievably independent. The woman would rather die than ask anyone for help. Another Lux Family trait, I’m told, and four generations later, it hasn’t been watered down any, at least not in me. Mom jokes that my first full sentence was, “I can do it myself.” It may not have been my first full sentence, but it was certainly one I said a lot, and still do. I think that independence is a good thing, but it can be not so good in excess. My great-grandmother is excessively independent. I hope that when I’m her age, I’m able to accept my limitations and ask for help. I hope that no matter what my age, I’m able to accept my limitations and ask for help when I need it.

Okay…enough introspection; here’s a funny story. One night last week I was alone with Grandma for about twenty to thirty minutes and she told a story about going to a dance with some girlfriends of hers. On the way home, they had a flat tire. Grandma was driving, it was late, and they were only a few blocks from the house, so she kept going. And she got pulled over by the sheriff. He accused her of drunk driving, but she swore she only had a couple of very small cups of beer and told him that if she were any younger, she knew he’d be taking her over into the bushes to take advantage of her, she knew how he was, she’d heard stories, yes sir. A few weeks later she had to appear in court and lucky for her, the judge was an old family friend who told the sheriff that he better not ever mess with Pauline again.

While she was telling me this, I was picturing a younger Grandma, a Pauline in her late teens before she got married, or maybe in her twenties after my grandmother was born and she had divorced her first husband. So I asked Grandma how old she was when this happened. “Oh…about sixty.”

I don’t know how much of this story is true. Grandma has a tendency to exaggerate a bit, but the essence of Grandma is there…her brashness, spunk, sass, independence…. I couldn’t dream up a character like her if I spent my whole life trying.