THANKS BRO

“Hey Sis,” he yelled, “Let’s build a tree house?” It was that simple, that direct and he had my attention and my partnership. And in due course, we would haul whatever wood we could find down through the pasture, to the woods and to the pine tree he had chosen for our tree house.

This was not an easy task and required many trips, lots of laughter, yelling, swearing and demands that we didn’t bring nearly enough food for this work! So we’d get another sibling to join us and now we were three and the work went a bit faster and the load a bit lighter.

Oh that was some tree house and although it never got any sides or a top, it did have a lovely platform and we sat on that for hours and made up all sorts of stories. One day we might be pirates sailing the world’s oceans and becoming rich as we found treasure, after treasure. The next day we were outlaws, robbing and plundering town after town and gaining more land than anyone could possibly control. Why some days we were pilots flying this huge aircraft and we could handle anything the weather gave us but storms were the most fun as we rocked back and forth, giggled and imagined the turbulence we would encounter.


This was the brother who made childhood so damn much fun. He was, as our mother said, “Part horse,” because he could ride any horse he was given and man, was he ever a beautiful rider. He and the horse were one and he was just amazing. He even trained to be a jockey but before his debut Uncle Sam tapped him and said, “Time to serve your country,” and he did but that ended his jockey dream.



There are many memories I have of this brother and as long as I have them, he will live forever. Lawrence (Tuffy) Dean, Jr., passed away on February 12th, 2009 ---he now rides all the horses he wants, and has the biggest tree house in the world – rest in peace my brother, I love and miss you!