One of the biggest storylines heading into last Sunday’s Super Bowl was, for the first time in NFL history, two brothers would be coaching the opposing teams.
By now, everyone is probably familiar with the Harbaughs, Jim and John, who coach the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, respectively. And one of the big questions - along with “that GoDaddy commercial, creepy or really creepy?” - was what the post-game handshake between the two brothers would be like. Would it be a warm embrace? Would some latent childhood memories surface and a fight break out?
As it turned out, the brothers shook hands, hugged woodenly and moved on. But as part of a sibling duo growing up, I’m qualified to tell you what should have happened.
The two brothers should have met at midfield. At that point, the losing coach should have removed his hat and letting the coach of the winning team administer a series of noogies, a Wet Willie and the Mother of All Wedgies (boxer waistband completely over the back of the head. Fabric pretty much has to rip.).
The losing coach would then be required to relinquish his dessert fora month, acknowledge the winning coach really was their parent’s favorite child and give up his claim to Shotgun and the top bunk.
If the ceremony got out of hand, the cellphones they were both required to carry would ring, and it would be their father, telling them they were upsetting their mother and they needed to knock off the horseplay or he was going to come down there, and if he did, they weren’t going to like it. And if they broke anything, they had to clean it up and it was coming out of their allowances, because money doesn’t grow on trees.
And they should hurry up, because they were all going to go get ice cream to celebrate and he wanted to get there before the crowd got too big.
That is how brothers, and to a large degree families with brothers, operate. You can’t stop the battle; you just have to try to contain the collateral damage.
Go into any Hallmark shop and you’ll find hundreds of cards for sisters with sentiments like “Sisters are the friends God gave you.” Cards for brothers involve flatulence jokes or say, basically, “Mom made me get this. Don’t touch my stuff .”
Brothers operate on a different level, one just below the thin veneer of civilization we’ve worked so hard to cultivate. Lock two Nobel prize-winning brothers with advanced degrees in philosophy and conflict resolution in a room, come back in an hour and they’ll have invented a game that involves some destructive, illogical activity;
a completely ridiculous scoring system that can’t be explained but is fluid enough to guarantee a fistfight; and a conclusion that involves the “winner” being allowed to do something both painful and humiliating to the loser.
My brother was born seven years before me and was quite a bit larger, so I had to adopt the ancient martial art of “chuck and duck.” Grab anything handy - a baseball bat, a croquet mallet (full-contact croquet, another Smith Brothers invention), a pingpong paddle (pingpong is to brotherly conflict what Fort Sumter was to the Civil War; just an excuse to light the powder keg) - throw it at him and run. In a lot of places, that would be considered assault with a deadly weapon. At my house it was Tuesday after school.
I can still remember the terror of looking over my shoulder and seeing my brother gaining as I raced home after one of our altercations. But I also remember seeing the legs of an older neighborhood bully sticking out of a trash can as my brother observed the First Law of Male Siblinghood: “I’m the only one who gets to beat on my brother.”
The poet William Blake said “joy and woe are woven fine.” Despite the fighting, my relationship with my brother had plenty of joy. It also had more than its share of woe. My brother got a seven-year head start on me, but I caught up when I turned 21. I wouldn’t really mind the fighting so much now. And I’d give a lot to let him have my dessert.
If you’ve got a brother, call him (and not something unprintable). Make your mother happy, give him a hug. Genetically, he’s the closest thing to you on earth. You all may compete like it’s the Super Bowl, but you’re linked forever, whether you like it or not.
Just watch out for the wedgie. Brothers are sneaky like that.
GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/07/2013