![\"George](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2015\/10\/George-and-Clarence.jpg\")
<\/a>More than George\u2019s life rides on Clarence\u2019s success since Clarence, who has been a wingless angel for over a century, is guaranteed by his managing angel Joseph that if Clarence turns George around, he will finally earn his wings. Clarence has a childlike honesty and is completely up front with George about both his identity and his mission from the start\u2014and George isn\u2019t buying any of it. \u201cWell, you look like about the kind of angel I\u2019d get,\u201d George comments. \u201cSort of a fallen angel, aren\u2019t you? What happened to your wings?\u201d<\/p>\nI was reminded of this scene from everyone\u2019s favorite Christmas movie not long ago as my Facebook feed greeted me with the opportunity to find out who among my 865 Facebook acquaintances is my guardian angel. I have taken far fewer of these sort of Facebook quizzes and games recently than I used to, but this one was of particular interest.<\/p>\n
Upon seeing the result I thought \u201cThat makes perfect sense. My brother is\u00a0exactly the kind of angel I would get, and I\u2019d be surprised if he noticed that I needed help. I\u2019m totally screwed. Fallen angel, no wings.\u201d But today is his birthday, so a few observations\u00a0are in order.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good thing we connect frequently on Facebook, because my brother and I rarely see each other.\u00a0 As she usually did on a Saturday morning,\u00a0 Just as a good Baptist kid should, I used stories from the Bible as touchstones during my growing up years. As the younger of two sons,\u00a0 In reality, it wasn\u2019t like that. My brother and I are the first two people on either side of our family to earn a four-year college degree, let alone an advanced degree. I remember no time when it was not clear to both Vaughn and me that we were going to college; this, of course, put the grade pressure on from the beginning. Both of us earned mostly A\u2019s, but my impression was that Vaughn got his without breaking a sweat, while I had to work hard for mine beginning with\u00a0my Freshman year in high school. This served me well as I headed to college, as my work ethic was already established; my impression was that my brother didn\u2019t enter the world of having to work hard at school until college. I sometimes wonder how it is possible that the two of us are even distantly related, let alone brothers. He loves rural Wyoming, while I prefer urban settings and would go insane with boredom living in the sticks. He prefers vodka martinis, which taste like lighter fluid to me, while he cannot abide the intense single malt scotches that I love. He once pronounced on Facebook that Samuel Adams Boston Lager is as dark as he will go. I replied that Boston Lager is as\u00a0light<\/strong>\u00a0as I will go. Even though he dresses like an aging cowboy for work, he made critical remarks about corduroy jackets in another Facebook pronouncement\u2013I had to point out that such jackets are the\u00a0sine qua non<\/em>\u00a0of male attire in my profession (I own five of them). He loves hockey but can take or leave college basketball, apparently unaware that the greatest two weeks in sports each year is March Madness.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Vaughn and his wife LaVona live a busy life in Wyoming where he is a doctor while Jeanne and I are equally well established 2500 miles away in Rhode Island. My son and daughter-in-law spent a week a few summers ago with their aunt and uncle in Wyoming; if memory serves correctly, it was the first time my daughter-in-law ever met them. She remarked afterwards that my brother, my son, and I are so similar in our mannerisms\u2014the way we walk, talk, cross our legs, our senses of humor\u2014that it is \u201cfreaky.\u201d Vaughn and I were best friends during the early years of my life, more of necessity than choice, since for the first eleven years of my life and fourteen years of his we lived in rural Vermont, far removed from relatives and even school friends. If we didn\u2019t want to be alone, we had to get along. I particularly remember an early turning point in our relationship.<\/p>\n<\/a>my mother sent my brother and I outside shortly after breakfast and said \u201cSee you at 5:00 for supper.\u201d So she was surprised to see me coming through the front door about a half hour later. \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d she asked. I answered that my brother had told me to go upstairs to get something needed for the game we were playing that he had forgotten in his bedroom. \u201cYou go tell your brother to come in here and get it himself!\u201d she told me. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to do what Vaughn tells you to do!\u201d \u201cI DON\u2019T?\u201d I replied\u2014this was news to me. Up until that point I had assumed my older brother had the authority of a third parent. That Saturday morning was a turning point in my life\u2014I didn\u2019t have to do what my brother commanded any longer.<\/p>\n<\/a>I identified with Jacob\u2019s preference for his mother and for hanging around the house rather than going out hunting and killing things, something Vaughn did with my Dad. Jacob\u2019s ability to regularly outsmart and manipulate his doofus\u00a0older brother Esau rang true, because I was sure I could get my equally challenged doofus older brother to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I was sure that if Baptist fathers gave special and exclusive blessings to oldest sons, I could get Vaughn to hand over his blessing in exchange for a can of soup.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n