While this blog is dedicated to my activities and thoughts about the hobby, there are times when something more important to me than the hobby occurs that makes me want to include it in this blog. Today is one of those days.
Today is Cinco de Mayo. More importantly, today is my brother Paul’s birthday.
There are 8 ½ years difference between my brother and me. In a lot of ways, we are from two different generations. With such an age difference, one would think that we don’t share much in common, but that is not really the case. We do each have our own interests; he enjoys sports while I am into this hobby I write about weekly. These differences though are few and normally we find ourselves always returning to the same interests and discussions.
A conversation between us cannot go by where we don’t discuss the latest movies. Since we were young, both of us loved going to the movies. Till this day we still find ourselves going to most movies on opening weekend, though being a dad and the distance between my brother and I have limited the number of times we can do it together. My hope is that as my daughter gets older, she can join my brother and me in these discussions.
Like I mentioned, a difference between my brother and me is my interest in the hobby. This wasn’t always the case though, as there was a time when my brother was into it. Back in the days of 40K second edition, my brother and I would play in the basement of our parent’s home. My brother would play space marines, while I would field my eldar. We would paint our little men and set them up on the ping-pong table that had been converted into a game board. The basement was always cold and damp, but it didn’t seem to matter to us.
The games were always one sided, my much younger brother seeming to always have the edge on me. Now I could claim that it was a matter of me going easy on him, but to be honest, that was never the case. My brother was a smart kid, and knew how to play with the units he had on the board. I would set-up my dark reaper exarch with a powerfield and reaper launcher on a hill and hope to sniper his librarian and assault cannon armed terminators as they approached. The plan never worked, even when I changed my strategy. Again, I equate this to my brother’s ability to strategize and stick to the plan.
It is this ability to focus and stick to the plan that has allowed him to become the man he is today. I’d like to think that those times we spent playing games in the basement is what made him into who he is, but he would have become that man regardless of any silly games we played. To me though, those times will always be the best times I have ever had enjoying this hobby.
Happy Birthday Brother!
If you would like to check out some of my brother's amazing writing, head over to his site.
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