Cast of characters: Don

When Daddy died in October, our family got a new patriarch: our oldest brother, Don. Scary, huh?

Brother Don is , well, unconventional. He is also loud, funny, often obnoxious, highly opinionated, politically incorrect and them some. You could call him "colorful," but that wouldn't quite do it. He's a cross between a mad scientist and a demagogue.

Let's be blunt here. He's a head case, a right-wing nut job. But he's our nut job, and that makes all the difference.

Don't tell him I said so, but he's a genius, and he has a cult-like following of friends all over the country. Not only is he a storyteller like Dad, but he's a storymaker. Nothing Don does is ever normal. He collects other characters like old ladies collect teacups. He can embellish a story like nobody's business, making you laugh until your stomach hurts. He's an original in a world of phonies, and he's the hero of his own unique story.

I can't tell you much of his early history, because he's 11 years older than I am, but I know he was a geek before being a geek was cool. With an engineer's mind and a singularity of purpose, he blazed his own trail. My earliest memories are of his model airplane days, and some of us wonder if all of that glue-sniffing might explain some of his peculiarities. He was always into something weird: his days as a beekeeper, his sports cars, his bow and arrow factory, his canoe-making, his player piano period during which he acquired something like 13 player pianos all in the same house in Detroit, and finally finding his escape hatch by quitting his last job in corporate America (when he used to routinely throw up every morning at the mere thought of reporting for work) and starting his own business, restoring Morgans and other exotic cars. Before he moved to Georgia, he once lived in an old red schoolhouse in rural Ohio. Much later, he became a "Machine Archaeologist," and every time I see a van or truck hauling some unlikely piece of equipment tied to a trailer on the highway, I think, "There goes my brother Don!"

Let's face it: Don needs his own blog. Or sitcom. Words are my stock in trade, and they fail me as I try to describe him. But Don is not all talk. He gets the job done. And he has a soft underbelly that's warm and fuzzy, too. He checked in with both Mom and Dad regularly, visited as often as he could, loved them in his own inimitable way. He also loves us, even if he never sends cards or follows any conventions, and we love him back.

Here's to you, my big brother, from your liberal elitist nut job sister.