Four Brothers

I was trying to fix an issue on my blog this evening when a ghost from the past paid a visit. The problem I was trying to fix had to do with Flickr mucking up some of the photos I had posted on previous blog entries. I had to back track through each posting and re-paste a modified image link into the posting.

The issue only affected the last five or six postings, so it was really that big a deal to fix. When I got around to the last post that required a little triage, I noticed a comment on the post. This immediately caught my eye, because nobody takes the time to leave comments on any of my posts (which is annoying, but a topic of another time).

Anyhow, I went to check who the comment was from and what they had to say, and to my astonishment there was a comment from a friend I haven’t seen in about 30 years. John Bruno, or “Johnny” as I remember him last, is the centerpiece of the three Bruno brothers. Dale was the oldest, Charlie was the youngest, with Johnny sandwiched in the middle. Charlie, who was my age, was also my best friend until the United States government (rather the United States Navy) decided to relocate the Bruno’s to some far away place.

I was always referred to by them as “Little Mike”, because there was an older Mike who lived down the street. Yes, kind of amusing that anyone would ever call me “little” anything, but everyone has their skeletons. Even little ole me.

I think they ended up in British Columbia, because that’s where we went to visit them a couple of year after they moved away from Lucerne Way in San Jose. The Bruno brothers were the brothers that I never had, but they always treated me like one. I remember spending a few days with them at their grandparent’s cabin up in the Sierras, and seeing a real live rattle snake (I think their grandfather shot it with a revolver). That was cool stuff when you were five. Boys just being boys!

If my memory serves me correctly, Mr. Bruno was a CPO in the Navy and had some affiliation with the Orion sub-hunters that flew out of Moffett Field, and Mrs. Bruno was a nurse. Those nursing skills came in handy one night at our house.

My dad was trying to discipline me for something (i.e. beating the snot out of me), but I tried alluding his wrath by running. He swung his belt at me, but the buckle caught me in the head. I can’t really remember how serious it was (perhaps that explains my amnesia), but it was bad enough that he summoned Mrs. Bruno to deal with my head wound. I still chuckle thinking about how he explained that one to her that night.

My Dad: “Uh, yeah, you see, um, well, he was misbehaving, and um, I, er, well, I tried spanking him with the blunt end of my belt, and it, uh, yeah, hmmm. He was moving and his head got in the way of his ass….”

Mrs. Bruno: “Well, OK, let me bandage that gash up and I’ll be on my way (dear God, he’s still holding that belt! Run woman, RUN!!!). Goodnight.”

Ah, good times.

The thing I’ll remember the most about the Bruno’s was that I was at their house while my mom was delivering my sister Michelle. To this day I can still remember being told by Mrs. Bruno that my mom had a delivered a little girl, and that I now had a sister. All hell broke loose at that point. I broke into the tantrum of all tantrums, because I was going to have a little sister!

I think I reacted that way because the only thing I really knew at that point was that having a sibling meant having a brother. That’s what Dale was to Johnny, and what Johnny was to Charlie. The Bruno’s next door neighbors, the Lutz’s, had four boys (the last of which was born two days before my sister). Why couldn’t I have that? Why was I the only kid on the block with a sister? Try explaining that to a five year-old boy.

I remember the night Sonya and I told Karsyn that she was going to have a little brother. I cringed when the words came out hoping she wasn’t going to go flailing down the beach in an uncontrollable fit because she was going to have a little brother. Thankfully, little girls can deal with that stuff a little better than I. I’m sure it helped that almost everyone one of her female friends has a little brother, but it was a load off my chest when she reacted with a smile.

In any case, when I found out that night that I had a little sister named Michelle, I reacted with less glee than Karsyn. Mrs. Bruno carried me down the hall so she could talk to me about it, and I kicked every inch of wall along the way. Somehow she calmed me down.

The worst part about that whole thing was that I probably had some premonition that sisters were pains in the ass. Man, I was dead on. Actually the worst part of this whole story is that after the Bruno’s moved away, we never really kept in touch. I saw Charlie my freshman year in high school when he paid a visit to the old neighborhood with his mom, but that was it.

Now, I get this comment on my blog from Johnny 30+ years later and all these great memories come back. Even the belt one makes me smile (because I know it was an accident, and I know my dad felt horrible that night…and the explaining part had to be priceless).

I’m hoping I’ll get to reconnect with the brothers Bruno, because they are my oldest friends. I think they're spread out across the south western part of the United States somewhere. I think my mom still keeps in contact with Mrs. Bruno, so hopefully we’ll get to exchange emails one of these days. I’d love to catch up and find out what became of my three “brothers”.