Hardships Of Living With A Gorgeous Brother

It’s story time today, so pull up a chair and get comfortable.  I’m sharing a tragically funny story about the hardships of growing up with a gorgeous older brother.

Over the weekend we went out of town for a 4-day state championship swim meet a few hours away from home.  My little family stayed with my aunt and uncle so we could rest and hang out at their house in-between morning and afternoon swim sessions.  If you’ve ever attended a swim meet, you know that they go on, and on, and onnnnnnnnnn so even if a meet is only a couple of hours from home, it’s so much easier for everyone to stay somewhere close to the pool for the weekend.

I feel so lucky my aunt and uncle live so close because this is the third year in a row we’ve crashed at their house for this particular swim meet.  We not only get 5-star accommodations, we also get precious family time in-between morning and afternoon swim sessions.  And we all know the best thing about family time is the unedited story telling, especially when the heroes and heroines of the story aren’t with you to defend their name(s).

My aunt, the one whose home we stay at during these state meets, is my father’s only sister, and is his junior by almost 10 years.  My dad and his Irish-twin brother were born right near the beginning of World War II, and lived all over Utah and Idaho and California while my grandfather worked odd jobs.  My grandfather’s family started the sheep business in the Western United States, and as a result, from a very young age my dad and his brother spent a lot of time in the mountains during of Utah during the summer herding sheep with their father.  My dad had a horse at the age of 3, and a BB-gun shortly thereafter.  I can’t imagine a more idyllic life for a couple of little boys, but apparently keeping them from their own demise was enough to make their mama weary.  The stories from their childhood are nearly unbelievable, and I feel a sort of desperation to get them written down before everyone dies.  Anyway, it was 10 years before my aunt showed up, and my grandmother was delighted.  She’d always wanted a little girl.

My aunt doesn’t have many memories of her older brothers growing up, mainly because by the time she was old enough to be aware, they were almost entirely out of the house.  She really was raised mostly as an only child.  But the funny thing about sisters, is sometimes they remember things brothers don’t care about, or don’t care to remember.  Either way, my aunt has so many fabulous stories about my father as a young man, things my dad either doesn’t remember or care to acknowledge.  And one of the things my dad doesn’t care to discuss is what a hottie he was from a very young age.

To put it simply: my dad was a gorgeous brother.  It didn’t really affect my aunt one way or another, because she was too young to care.  But by the time she was old enough to notice the way girls acted around him, she sat up and took note.  My aunt told me all weekend she didn’t have a great memory, but man, the stories she told me were so great; I could’ve listened all day long.

My aunt and I chatted all weekend long, in the morning before the meet, and at lunchtime in-between swim sessions.  And both of us felt frantic about passing this information on so these stories don’t get forgotten or lost to the next generation.  My daughter sat with me one afternoon while my aunt showed us entire books of photographs of my grandparents and my dad as a child and then young man, and adult.  The more I looked and the more I listened, the more real my father became to me as a human.  Do you know what I mean?  I’ve always known him as a very strict father, known him as a psychologist, as a spouse to my mother, as a neighbor and church member, but I’ve never known him as a brother or a son, or guy.  It was so wonderful to get another perspective about my father’s life, and the life of his family and stories that help me to understand myself and these two children I’m raising.

I loved every minute of it.

After a couple of days of storytelling and looking at old photos of my dad and reminiscing, a story of my own came back to me.  Something I’d totally forgotten about, or buried in my mind behind the bills I need to pay and this week’s to-do list.  A story about me and my older brother, the one brother out of three who looks almost exactly like my dad: lady killer 2.0.

I’m one of 8 kids: 5 girls and 3 boys.  I’m #6, the third daughter out of five with two younger sisters.  Just above me is a brother, 22 months and one school grade older, with whom I was very, very close growing up; a criminally handsome, gorgeous older brother.  Not to me, at the time, obviously.  I thought he smelled gross, ate too much food, and didn’t share his Walkman often enough, but nobody asked me.  The girls on the other hand?  They loooooooooooooved my brother.

I was cognizant of girls crushing on my brother from about the 3rd grade on, but it didn’t affect me too much until middle school and high school.  At that point I became a pawn in girl politics, and much maneuvering was made to be my friend to get closer to my brother.  It always ended badly for me, because my brother was a serial dater who broke up with girls about as often as he switched out his socks.  This was not awesome for my life.  I was often shoved into the enemy camp for an entire school year at a time after a relationship with a classmate of mine ended badly.  And they all ended, badly, usually after a very short period of time, because the girls never wanted to end things, and my brother always did.

My brother will contest this, but the truth of the matter is that my brother dated almost everyone I knew, and everyone I didn’t.  One Spring in high school he attended three separate proms, two of them for schools in totally different cities, both for schools he didn’t attend.  He dated scores and scores and scores of girls from valleys near and far, and as much as I loved him, then and now, by the time I graduated from high school, I was ready to be known by my own name.

I was thrilled to go to college in a different state where no one knew his name.  I registered for classes, found a dorm, got a job, and showed up for fall semester of my freshman year in college ready for a whole new life.

On my first day of school, my first class of my college life, at 8:00 A.M. on a Monday morning, I headed to the language arts building for my Spanish class.  I couldn’t’ve been more excited.  It was a tiny class of probably less than 25 students (the smart ones were at home, in bed), and we were all noticeably nervous.  I lined up my books and new folders on the desk, rearranged my pens, as I readied myself for life as an adult.  Because it was a smaller school, and also probably to waste time, the professor asked us each to introduce ourselves, to tell everyone in the class our names and where we were from.  I never did like this part of any class, because my (maiden) name was Allison Aagard.  I was at the top of every class roll, double default with the AA.  So when the professor inevitably looked at the top of his roll and asked me to start, I introduced myself,

“Hi, my name is Allison Aagard, and I’m from Orem, Utah.  I’m a physical therapy major (the first of my 7 majors), and I’m really excited to take this Spanish class.”

I was interrupted shortly after that, by a girl I hadn’t even noticed from across the room,

“Oh, my GOOOOOOOOOSH, are you by chance related to Hans Aagard?!!!”

And that my friends, is the story of my life.

Allison

Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!