OUR FAMILY SHAME

In celebration of "Family Scandals Friday", and in the tradition of the Holidays, I wanted to share one of our country's most talked about mysteries.

Very few times in the history of the world, did a photographer capture a moment pivotal in the understanding of a highly controversial event. We feel fortunate that ours WAS.

No pictures of Amelia Earhart landing on an island, no evidence of who was the person behind Jack The Ripper, no explanation why the Kardashians are successful or even wanted, and of course, why no pictures of Elvis since 1977, since most of us KNOW he's having leftover turkey with his fried peanut butter and banana sandwich somewhere....TODAY!

Yet, after exhaustive research, involving literally tens of minutes of backbreaking examination of the forensic evidence, we now have the answer to one of humanity's unanswerable questions -

Why was my cousin Kevin the FAVORITE grandchild?

It could be said he is a good man. It could be said he helps anyone he can, as long as it's not during racing season, hunting season, hockey season, OR the end of year holidays. And Flag day.

It can be said he's raised 2 great kids, except when raising them got in the way of racing season, hunting season, hockey season, and the end of year holidays, in which case their Mother, Michelle, stood in, like a guest host on the Tonight Show. They did good but Johnny got all the credit. As does Kevin. It was once whispered he nominated himself for "Mom of the Year" award, 20 consecutive years.

It can be said his only fatal flaw is that he, for some unfathomable reason, prefers Chevrolet to FORD. NO SANE person would admit to this in public, private, or under duress, but that is a psychosis better left to professional doctors practicing in Thailand, under an assumed name, for their own protection.

Anyhoo....

As the evidence became clear (and by evidence I mean discovering the INTENT recorded in a long forgotten family photo), we now have an indisputable timeline that, once and for all, explains why it was Kevin, not Brian - his brother and HOF-caliber coach of Pee Wee football.

Not Mark - also his brother and legendarily hard working man that in his secret life, is a connoisseur of adult beverages in various mixtures of malts and hops. OK... maybe NOT so secret.

We could go on and on, as our family is full of worthy individuals. Chris, Heather, Kristi, Jodi, Stephanie, and Mike, who are all probably happy I don't go into more detail. Lets just say that they may have been ACCUSED of various things, they were never PROSECUTED. One or more MAY even be in the witness protection program. Or not.

Anyways....

Back to the nefarious Kevin.

I submit to you, the conclusive and case-closing submission - the photograph presented here. These are NOT just kids with their Grandmother.

Yes, that is Grammy, and left to right, the aforementioned and not yet Coach Brian, me on her lap (almost as if she, that day, had PICKED her favorite Grandchild), Mark is next, obviously calculating the hypotenuse of his position on the chair in relation to the floor, and then.....Kevin.

You can clearly see in his eyes that the current situation is something he MUST make plans to change. He WANTED to be the favorite. He NEEDED to be the favorite.

In the days that followed, rumors spread that all was not as it appeared in Grandchildrendom. While the photo doesn't have audio with it, there is no doubt the wheels were ALREADY turning in Kevin's 4 year old mind. He may have not KNOWN what innuendo WAS at the time, but without a doubt,  he was already a  prodigy.

All of a sudden, stories of inappropriate touching of teddy bears spread. Rock'em Sock'em robots turned up missing or beheaded. GI Joe mysteriously came back from battle with symptoms of PTSD.

There was no DIRECT accusations of WHO did these horrific deeds, but Kevin ALWAYS had an alibi. One by one, Grammy started to ignore our requests for more cookies, and we started to wake up, not on her couch where we originally were placed for our naps, but in a farmer's field 2 counties over.

Our young minds could not comprehend the seriousness of our declining position in the hierarchy of the grandchildren in Grammy's mind. In all of our years (or in Mark's case, months) of life experience, we could not imagine the lengths Kevin would pursue, to be granted preferred status.

We finally had to admit something was wrong when the great, imaginative gifts from our Grandmother stopped, and in their place was a used card from the dentist with an expired coupon for a free package of brussels sprouts inside.

All these decades, no one came forward to admit to these dastardly deeds. No investigation was called for. No thoughts of wrongdoing were brought out. Nothing. It was a farce at family reunions, as when we were told to play hide and seek, but we were never found. That's why we always had a cab on standby during these functions.

Realization came swiftly and vindication is sure to follow, although Grammy has since passed away, (or she is secretly a year-long groupie for the Philadelphia Phillies) never knowing the crippling effects her choices caused. We tended to forget the "crippling" part when she made Pot Pie, as it was DELICIOUS!...

While CNN has not responded to requests of exposing this breaking news nationally, I feel confident that in short order, all the grands will ultimately file a suite in civil court to compensate us for our pain and suffering. Kevin MAY end up having to sell his race T-Shirt collection which has been conservatively estimated to be worth in the 3-figures.

... unless he was the favorite just because he was the FIRST...

We might never know for sure, but details will surely follow....