I don’t think my brother reads my website, but seeing as I live practically on the other side of the country now, this will be my virtual public birthday e-card to him (lasts longer than an e-card, too!).
It all started with those chipmunk cheeks:
Alvin, 3
Alvin was the only one in my family who was born in Canada, thus eternally spared from the cost and hassle of obtaining a Canadian Citizenship Card to get a passport. Something I’m sure my parents didn’t have in mind when they bore him, but… I digress.
I remember the day he was born, even though I wasn’t yet three years old at the time. Allan, who was nearly four, and I had to wait in the car in the parking lot of St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg. It was 1975 and we were two restless kids, waiting, waiting, waiting. I think my mother still has the photo of us sitting on TOP of the car. In those days I don’t recall it being unusual for us to be unsupervised, but maybe we were acting up and Dad exiled us to the car where we could be as loud as we wanted and took a photo for posterity. After all, Allan and I, at 12.5 months apart, are even closer in age than Melissa and Michael. With all the fighting going on between us, we were looking forward to another sibling for tie-breakers and sharing chores and victimisation!
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