This past weekend my uncle had his 60th birthday party.  It has been a love hate relationship between my immediate family and extended family that mostly has involved hate.  Fortunately, the last few years, thanks to my maturing and Shirley’s ability to get pretty much anyone to like her and tolerate me, things have steadily improved relationship wise between my immediate family and extended family.  That being said, here is a text I sent to my brother Andy who lives in Chicago regarding the party being held at Green Lake this past Saturday in my uncle’s honor: (I realize I could redact this string of texts to protect the innocent but what fun would that be?)

Me: “What time are you planning on getting to the party?”

A: “I’m already there, it’s at Brans steakhouse right?”

“Yes, the one where Brett and Sara had their reception and you and I got obscenely drunk, should we try to recreate that night?”

“I totally forgot that was at Brans” (this could be for a number of reasons, it was at Brans, we drank more alcohol between the two of us than a fraternity, it was at Brans.)

“Yes, probably one of my worst wedding reception performances of all time, almost as bad as when I was hitting on all of your friend’s wives at Dave and Brittany’s reception (Brittany is my sister and Dave is the guy who is going to make it big on Bitcoin).  It really explains why the Jansma’s continue to hate us”

“Yeah those weddings tend to be real shit shows.  Who’s wife were you hitting on at Dave and Brittany’s wedding?”

“The question is whose wife wasn’t I hitting on?  I remember taking warm shots of really warm Vodka at Brett and Sarah’s wedding.  I feel like that night I got back at mom somewhat for all the child hood trauma I suffered at her hands, she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop me from going off the rails.  Can you imagine what would have happened if Jesse hadn’t been in Australia?”  (Jesse is the middle brother)

“Someone would have ended up in jail.  Brans would have burned to the ground”

“It’s truly amazing that we were invited to any other Jansma weddings after that.  You remember the table of misfits at Nicole’s wedding?  The guy who was missing an arm sitting next to the 60 year old women holding a teddy bear? Can’t make that shit up”

“That was so odd.  The guy missing an arm was also very unkempt.  I think he was using an extension cord for a belt.  I just wanted to know their story.”

“I think their story somehow involved human trafficking, should have sent Dave over there to chat them up about bit coin, he would have gotten to the bottom of things.  Couldn’t you just see him walking over there with his phone and asking them if they wanted to see his bit coin balance?”

Now in my defense, I was at a really bad place in my life when my sister got married, I had two young kids and a terrible attitude about everything, fortunately my kids have gotten older and I now enjoy their company for the most part.  However, the text exchange I had with my brother did bring a flood of memories that made me question how I am still alive to this day.  Typically when you get two of the Jansma brothers together it’s a recipe for disaster, and when you get all three of them together someone is likely to get arrested, which has actually happened.

The summer after Aiden was born I went on a golf trip up to tree tops with a bunch of guys including my brother Jesse.  We played 18 holes on a Sunday morning and then had a break before we played the tree tops par 3 course which involved quite a bit of treacherous terrain for sober people, but for those whose BAC is above .20 it could be considered deadly.  I managed to consume an entire fifth of scotch in the break which not only made me incapable of teeing the ball up, it also impaired my judgment to the point that I allowed my brother to drive the golf cart even though he was probably drunker and higher than I was.  Somewhere in the midst of the par 3 course my brother flipped the cart on its side, not his side but my side, and my head, shoulder, and fingers were skidding along the asphalt car path.

There is an argument to be made that had I not been so drunk I probably would have died or at the very least lost the ability to use my arms and legs, but there is also an argument that if the two of us hand’t been that drunk none of it would have ever happened.  I ended up with a raspberry on my forehead and no hair to hide it, a raspberry on my shoulder with a minimal amount of hair to hide it, and the pad on my right ring finger looked like hamburger.  Beyond that, the cart was pretty Effed up, not as Effed up as I was, but if the clubhouse caught wind of the damage there would be financial penalties.  To avoid this from happening we left the cart in the back of the parking lot and got the hell out of there.  The problematic thing was that I was on a golf trip with a bunch of guys and none of them had any type of Florence Nightingale instincts, as a matter of fact they just left me in the back of a van to die while they had dinner at some crappy Mexican restaurant.  Surprisingly, the following day I played well, at least for me, I feel like the near death experience really allowed me to focus on my golf game.

That scenario involved two Jansma brothers but there was one in recent memory that involved all three of us.  Years ago we ended up going to Royal Oak to see Adam Carolla, it was the three of us and one of my brother’s friends.  I drove so I wasn’t a contributing factor to the absurd behavior that took place.  My brother Andy decided to pick up a fifth of Seagram’s gin (obviously the good stuff it came in a plastic bottle) and smuggle it in in five hour energy drink containers.  Things seemed to be going ok until my brother forgot he was at comedy show and not a dance club and decided to start slamming his five hour gin.  Things accelerated extremely fast and he started talking shit to some people around us and before I could say Man Show the bouncers were on my brother like white on rice. My other brother and his buddy didn’t seem to care, or they didn’t want to have to go out into the frigid December night to see if Andy would wind up getting the shit kicked out of him.  So, being the oldest, and most sober, I followed Andy and the bouncers out watching him struggle with them the entire time.

Once they were outside I was able to deescalate the situation and the bouncers ended up walking away from my brother and to the door but told my brother he couldn’t go back in.  Not sure what got into my brother, but he got up and started drunkenly sprinting towards the bouncers before I knew what was going on and could stop him.  This time they weren’t giving my brother a second chance, they beat the crap out of him because he was being a dick and because they were bouncers and that’s what they do.  To add insult to injury the Royal Oak police were called and ultimately arrested my brother, I never asked him if he was able to smuggle in some of those five hour gin’s but I am guessing he hasn’t had a sip of the stuff since that fateful night.  I can’t imagine what would have happened had my parents had four boys.