I don’t write very often about my brother Joey, but I have to say that he is one of my favorite people. It was his birthday on Sunday and I wanted to write a story about him to share with you the happy go-lucky kid I grew up with. If you’ve ever met my brother, you know there is one story that has to be told before the others. One fascination my brother had as a little boy (and as a grown-up, let’s be honest) that stands above the rest.
My brother has always wanted to be a ghostbuster.
No, not just any ghostbuster. A Real Ghostbuster. (There seems to be a difference, if only in the minds of Saturday morning cartoon producers.) I don’t remember the first time he ventured into the world of Ghostbusting. I know that we were allowed to see the movie long before we probably should have. Let’s see…I know I didn’t see it when it came out in…ohmygoodness, 1984. Because I would have been five. Hmmm…I can picture us all sitting on the floor of the living room, my cousins, my sister, my brother…and Rhi might have been one-ish (no she wasn’t watching it). So let’s just say that makes me twelve. Joe would have been seven. Yeah, that seems about right. I remember so vividly, because we all argued over who got to be Peter Venkman. Who had to be Ray. Who was Egon. So on and so forth. We’d all yell out our lines. Joey could be anybody. He knew it all. He lived and breathed that movie.
But did the fascination with the movie come before the cartoon? I swear to god, in my brother’s life, this is the chicken or the egg question for to him, Ghostbusters is everything. The cartoon was just a part of it. He had the soundtrack to the movie and it was the only record my mom allowed him to put on by himself. (That rule was a little silly because it was the only album he ever wanted to play.) He would dance funky dances only seven-year-old white boys with no rhythm but a lot of heart could ever dance. He didn’t care – the music was all about his boys, his Ghostbusters, saving the world and having a kickass time doing it. So he learned to have fun.
Movie, cartoons, music…oh, and toys. I loved all the toys. So did he. And he had them alllll. The firehouse. The Ecto-1 car. All the playaction figures and hundreds of ghosts. And Slimer. My mom searched high and low across several cities and towns for that Slimer toy – and my mom is not one to shop or spend gas frivolously. A day or two before my brother’s birthday, she finally found him at a drugstore of all places. She baked a secret three-layer cake and topped it with the Slimer figurine, his arms outstretched and green “goo” frosting sliding down the cake. My brother’s face as we sang Happy Birthday and my mom carried in the cake was as close to pure happiness as I’ll ever see in this lifetime.
And then there was the wonderful sense of imagination that all of us kids inherited. Joey got his from all of the pretend-play Ghostbusters toys…and if that’s not where he got it, then he at least perfected it while playing with them. He had a trap, a proton pack, several nerf blaster thingies, and Egon’s ghost detector thingie. We all had fun playing with him, but my brother was obsessed. He and the neighbor boys logged hours busting ghosts. For his birthday, my mom even made him a jumpsuit just like the Ghostbusters wore. My brother wore that thing until it was several inches too short and my mother pried it away. What little boy do you know these days who plays anything other than video games?
So really, I believe it’s in all fairness when I say that my brother became the awesome, kind-hearted, hilarious root-for-the-underdog person he is all because of Ghostbusters. Happy Birthday, Joey!
March 31, 2009 at 11:51 am |
Ok, ok – he’s invited to Memorial Day Weekend Palooza too.