The Horse Race

I am looking back a hundred years at my great-great uncle. There is a picture of him in the Chicago Daily News Archives from 1907. The caption is “John A. Rogers, Gambler.” He is standing outside with his bowler hat, three-piece suit and bow tie. He looks confident and prosperous in the photo, his shoulders back and his chin raised. It isn’t a posed photo – you can’t be sure that he even knew it was being taken. He looks as if he is about to say something, maybe respond to a reporter’s questions.

I have another picture of him that is in pretty bad shape, but I love to look at it. This one comes from my Grandmother’s album, and it shows John A. sitting on a bench in his three-piece suit. I can see his shoes in this one, they are the tall ones that lace up and again he wears a bow tie.

He is not alone; there are four other men with him. I know one of them is his brother, my great grandfather. I wonder if the other men were also brothers and brothers-in-law. They are sitting on a fake log cabin set of some kind, two of the men standing inside the cabin and poking their heads out of the window and three of them sitting on this log bench. A white paper tag hangs from a string on each suit coat – maybe an admission ticket. They are smiling easily, not a care in the world have these guys.

Another picture brings me back to the real world of today. This one is of all of my nieces and nephews at the family gathering on Christmas at my brother’s house. There are six boys in our family of eleven children. We all have a lot of fun when we are together, but I am always struck by how close my brothers are. Every Christmas we open presents for hours and for most of that time my brothers are making us laugh.

Christmas is an intimate gathering of 40 now that most of us are married with children and even two grandchildren, so the gifts go on and on. Until a few years ago, we all still bought each person a gift. We would gather at my Mom and Dad’s, and the presents would run from one end of our 20’ family room to the other, waist high. Opening the gifts took so long that we had to take breaks. Friends think I am joking when I tell them that for years, as we took a break to grab a plate of cookies or pour a Kahlua and Cream, my Mom would raffle off afghans she’d made that year.

By the time we finally decided to pick names so the number of gifts would be reduced, we had waited too long. What with marriages and children being born, the number of people had increased, so somehow we were still basically stuck with the four-hour ordeal.

The thing that keeps this bearable is that we all sincerely enjoy being together. And as the afternoon fades into evening, we are silly with laughter. My brothers are dangerously funny one on one, but when they get together it is an experience. My son Tim still talks about one wedding dinner when he was seated with five of the brothers. He laughed so hard, for so long, that his stomach muscles hurt for days.

It is a joy to watch them crack each other up. They know each other so well that they move seamlessly from straight man to funny man to unwitting victim to slapstick expert. Their competitiveness feeds the fire, each trying to outdo the other. And while they don’t mind that others are there to watch, they are doing it for their own pleasure. They are playing now, as they did when they were small, and having as much fun. I watch them as someone makes a comment, there is a sudden glint in their eyes and there they go - like horses running a race, except these horses are running together and daring each other to keep up.

I am looking once more at the picture of John A. and his brother, my great grandfather. I notice a familiar look in their smiling eyes.

The man behind the camera better watch out. I have a feeling his stomach will hurt tomorrow.