From Virginia Gilbert

Happy Birthday to my OLD brother! Not that I’m as old as big brother Jim, I certainly have the oldest stories to tell on him. So happy to have this audience! Most of my life Jim (Jimmy) has been a great role model and good big-brother adviser, but as often happens in families, he had the great advantage of being the oldest of the bunch. For example, Mama always sent Jim brownies to him at Camp Mac. Not so with child #3. Mamaw and Daddy Bob, our grandparents, took this first-born, special grandchild on vacations to the Great Smokey Mountains; and Mamaw even wrote stories about her beloved grandson Jimmy. No grandparent-sponsored vacations and certainly no special Mamaw stories about the rest of us. (There’s no jealousy here, just facts!) I know that Jimmy couldn’t help it that he was the oldest, and I’m certainly aware that his position in the pecking order made life difficult. Occasionally, however, Jimmy would take a advantage of his little sister and her hero worship of him. For example, when I was about 10 years old, I wanted to make a little extra money. Jimmy hired me to be his assistant on his paper route. After we picked up the Tuscaloosa News papers, Robert and I would roll them and then drop Robert off at Druid City Hospital for his delivery route door-to-door there. Finally Jimmy and I were off to his route. He would drive the Volkswagen bus while I threw the papers into yards. Never mind that I wasn’t too good and missed a few yards. Then we would hit the apartments around the University of Alabama. While Jimmy sat in the bus and read the funny papers, I would run with unfolded papers up and down steps, delivering them to the front doors of the apartments. For all of this, not to mention that we began at 5:00 am, Jimmy paid me a whopping quarter a day! Needless to say, I finally wised up after about 2 weeks of this torture and quit!

For most of my life, though, I have to say that Jim has been a wonderful big brother. My first husband and I lived with Jim, Mary Helen, and newborn Leigh for a few weeks in Manassas, Virginia. Jim’s back was never the same after he helped us move a piano up three flights of stairs to our new apartment in Fairfax County. Sorry, Jim. I lived with them again two years later when I was finishing up a teaching position in Fairfax County and didn’t want to stay by myself. (I was so young and had never lived alone.) Jim and Mary Helen have included me so many times in their lives. For example, after I divorced, they took me with them on their family ski vacation out west, and Jim almost got trapped in a snowstorm while picking me up from the Denver airport. Again, sorry about that. The list of good big-brother deeds can go on and on, for which I am very grateful. Most of all, I am thankful to have grown up with this amazing person. Happy 65^th, Jim!

Love,
Virginia