My brother. The funniest guy in the world.

My brother cracks me up. Totally. I mean, there are very few people in the world who can make me snort milk out my nose. (Or Coke, which believe me, really hurts.) And he is one of them. Sometimes just looking at a picture of him sends me madly giggling.

My brother, Chuck, is a huge guy. He's 6'5" of huggy bear funny, strong as a moose, but the sweetest and gentlest of men. In high school the football coach begged him to be on the team, but he refused and played tennis instead. Little guys would want to fight him, and he just laughed and said, "No thanks." Because, honestly, those little guys had no idea how strong he really is, and he did not want to hurt them.

Remember that part in the Princess Bride where Cary Elwe's character is trying to throw Andre the Giant? He grabs him around the waist and grunts and groans and throws his weight around and Andre just looks down at him like "Yeah? What?".

It would have been like that, if Chuck let the little guys fight him.

Anyhow, this picture of my brother just has me giggling everytime I see it. His friend Rob sent it to me, titled "Snafuracing Posterchildren". His face and the crooked glasses, it's just funny.

He is a car racer and also teaches folks how to drive competitively. (He's very patient!) He wins just about every race he attempts. That man can DRIVE. We come from a car family, he and I. That's my Dad in the picture with him. He's an inveterate car guy, collector of classic American and French cars and the odd Vespa or two. (No "normal" cars for us. My first car was a '64 Corvair convertible, my second was a '62 Renault Caravelle convertible.) Growing up with all those cars, is it any wonder that my brother now races and I am something of a car snob myself? Automatic transmission? SUV? I fart on your lameness. Pah!

(Mom's the maverick in the family. Absolutely no interest in cars. She just wants it to work. She won't even put gas in the car, sniffing, in her particularly Teutonic way, "That is your father's job". I once showed her how to do it, and she said "Oh, that wasn't so hard. So now I know what your father is doing when I send him to town to get gas for the car!")

My brother's racing team is called Snafuracing. (One of their mottos is "Snafuracing. A drinking team with a racing problem". ) That's one of his cars there in the picture. It doesn't look particularly racy, but Chuck's M.O. is to come to the track with a car that does not look like much of anything, then drive circles around the guys with the flashy cars because he knows EXACTLY how far he can push his own car, and exactly what it will do on any given corner, straightaway or curve. Plus there's always a little somethin' somethin' unexpected under the hood. Kinda like my bro....something special under all that big guy humor.

So, to my funny brother, I love you. And I'm damn proud of you, too. So there.
(Private to Kit: Now, for lesson number 573 in DON'T FUCK WITH ME!)