Keeping up with the Cluffs

Growing up, every kid has someone they try to imitate, someone they admire. Perhaps they even secretly wish they could take his place. Jake has Shadow the hedgehog. Dwight Schrute has Michael Scott. Michael Scott has Todd Packer. Even Homer Simpson has Duffman. (For the purposes of this post...) That person in my life has always been my cousin Ryan.

Ryan is two years older than me, which seems like a lifetime when you're a kid. He was always the straw that stirred the drink. Things just happened when he was around. Just walking somewhere with him made you feel cooler, it didn't matter where you were going. My boyhood is dotted with episodes of trying to measure up to my older cousin:

When I was 8 and he was 10 we spent Easter up in Whitecourt at the Heaven's. I thought I had outdone him in the egg-rolling contest. He and Bill responded by pelting me with the leftover eggs and then locking me in an empty rabbit cage and leaving me there until I passed out from the ammonia fumes.

When I was 9 and he was 11 I caught his attention by reciting all the lyrics from Joan-Jett and the Blackhearts hit "I love Rock-n-Roll". But later that day he outdid me by founding and playing lead-guitar for the Rock super-group Firestorm, which remains the greatest under-14 band in Magrath's history.

When I was 11 and he was 13 I tried to outshine Ryan with the recent baseball championship trophy our team had just won. But he had something far more impressive -a girlfriend. I spent a whole weekend trapsing around the St. Mary's campground listening to he and Bill talk about girls. My slang vocabulary increased ten-fold.

When I was 17 I was often top-scorer on our high school basketball team. But he was 19, a freshman at Ricks College and into Gatorade, late-nights parties, and most of all...gangsta rap. I remember seeing him and Bill on a Thanksgiving weekend and driving around in their compact listening to NWA. It was the Mount Olympus of teenage cool.

It has taken me multiple attempts and several decades, but I think I've finally outdone Ryan. He lives in Orem, I live in Bangkok. He vacations in New Mexico, I go snorkeling in Phuket. This superiority is personified by my pimped out ride - each day I travel to the archives in a pink taxi. Who could possibly top that? I took great pride in fulfilling a life-long dream of out-doing my cousin.

Until I saw this:



Not only did Mr. Senior-project-manager go out and get a Lexus (and a smokin' hot wife to pose on the hood), he gets the most beautiful shade of purple you can buy without having to slap a rainbow-triangle on the bumper.

So, once again I have fallen short. But my resolve has not weakened. I'm pretty sure a dissertation on the "Selective Memory of Survival: The Franco-Thai conflict and the role of loss in modern Thai history" will vault me right back into the spotlight. Then we'll see what's what.