Some days are simply better than others. Today the weather was not particularly nice. Thought it didn't rain, the sun was pale. It never really warmed up. And, more of the things I'd intended to do during the day are still undone than those I managed to check off the list. But, Tal and I went for a walk after I got home from my stint in the art co-op and supper turned out well. There isn't anything I can put my finger on. I was simply a good day.

One of the prodominant features of this day, however, has been a fifty-one year old memory. I couldn't say what time it was when the call came. Mom and Dad (Mommy and Daddy then) were gone; Grandma Johnson was with Joyce and me. I've tried remembering where the telephone was. Outside Mom and Dad's room, near the kitchen door? Was there a telephone? Had to have been. I remember Grandma taking the call. But maybe it wasn't a telephone to the outside world; there may have still been only one of those at Brookgreen. Maybe what she answered was the wooden, crank telephone (magnetophone?) used within Brookgreen.

Not that the telephone itself matters at all. What Joyce and I learned from our grandmother was that we had a brother. I'm not sure either of us knew what that meant and I know we were unprepared for how another sibling was going to change our young world. But, the moment of hearing the news and the extraordinary woman who delivered it will be in my memory both long and vividly. The fifth of December 1957 was a very good day. And, having a brother -- today even more than then -- is one of live's best joys.

I've loved thinking about all this today. What the weather did or didn't do was inconsequential. What I had to do and didn't finish was less than important. My fifty-one year old memory -- "you two have a little brother" was all it took to make this a better than normal day.