A Birthday Card For My Brother

There’s a big, framed photograph on the wall behind my office desk, taken more than three decades ago by my old friend Vince Bell. It was shot on the north slope of Mt. Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains, not far from the summit. It’s me at age 26, with my brother at age 37, in front of an ancient bristlecone pine.

We were celebrating my 26th birthday with an epic trek over Mt. Baldy and over Pine Mountain, down into Wrightwood, where we would storm The Yodler and get gloriously drunk.

I’ve been thinking about that hike and others in the San Gabriels a lot over the past few days. As readers know, I’m prone to bouts of nostalgia for the old frontier town of Los Angeles where I grew up. I miss the chaparral-covered slopes and steep rocky canyons, the oaks, the piñon pines. Mostly, right now, I miss my brother.

He turns 71 today, and it’s past time that I tip my hat to a man that has loomed large in my world ever since I came into it.

Despite an 11-1/2-year age gap, we’ve always been close. John was a hero to me when I was little — he was smart and athletic, and for about a decade rocked an impressive head of very long hair  and a fine mustache (this was the 1970s and the Age of the Allman Bros. after all).

He was a tremendous influence on me — mostly in good ways. Giving your little brother a bottle of Chivas Regal for a high school graduation present probably would be frowned upon these days, but it was a different time. He did try to rein me in when I was acting like a total jackass — but there were some things about that stuff that I had to figure out on my own.

Anyways…

There were more powerful and lasting influences. He took me to the first movie I ever saw in a theater when I was maybe eight years old. It was Jeremiah Johnson. I discovered Robert E. Howard because of John’s collection of Conan books with the badass Frazetta covers. When I was about 13, he gave me a book and told me I would love it. It was Allan W. Eckert’s The Frontiersmen — his narrative built around the life of Kentucky’s great Frontier Partisan, Simon Kenton.  That moment, which I can still conjure up in my mind’s eye, set my moccasins on the path of my life’s calling. You’re reading this because my brother knew how to light a fire.

And… he introduced me to Lady Marilyn, who had returned from a sojourn to Alaska and was working at the printing company where he was an ace salesman. He assured me that he was not trying to set me up, but… Well played, John.

John is a passionate ocean fisherman. He shared that with me, taking me on multi-day deep-water tuna fishing trips off of Mexico that remain highlights of my life. I have a vivid memory of a manic tuna bite in which he hooked and reeled in successive 80+ pound bluefins, one of which took the jackpot for the trip. We were all catching nice fish — but not like that.

As the deckhand gaffed the last giant, John fell to his knees on the deck, completely knackered, victorious, his forearms alarmingly swollen. A champion.

Glorious times…

Of course, he has had a rich life outside of influencing his little brother. Husband, father of two daughters, a coach, a successful businessman. These days, he’s taking care of our 96-year-old father. We talk on the regular, but we don’t get to see each other much. My travels never take me to SoCal, and he hasn’t come north since my daughter’s wedding. We oughta do something about that.

Anyways…

I have offered tributes on these pages to many who have enriched my life — musicians, artists, writers, warriors. None of them mean anywhere near as much to me as John Cornelius. So… overdue… a birthday tribute.

I love you bro.