Coloring Inside the Lines

What is a mother to do? Raising two sons! Call them daylight and dark! That was my mother’s dilemma with my brother and me. Give us each a coloring book picture to color, and our approach would be very different. I would look at it, size it up and painstakingly, color inside the lines. I would be very upset if I violated the bounds of those lines and colored into the forbidden space. On the other hand, Mike would look at whole page, perhaps color inside the lines that defined the picture, but he would also use the rest of the page to create his own story by using the crayons to express whatever he wanted the whole picture to be. I was always careful to live inside the lines of what I perceived was expected of me. Mike lived inside and outside of those boundary lines to test the expectations of those who drew those lines.

For instance...

There once was a problem at the Brady grocery store in the late 1950’s. My dad discovered that someone was taking packs of Camel cigarettes. He knew this because he smoked Camels. For some reason my mother thought I was the guilty one. My dad, however, was sure that Mike was the one stealing the Camels although he was only seven years old.

So a trap was set. Our daddy began watching Mike closely. Finally, after lunch one day Mike made his move and took off down behind a grove of locust trees at the back of the store. I was summoned to sneak through that grove of trees, hide so I wouldn’t be seen by Mike, and watch to see what he was up to. He had climbed up onto a stack of straw bales. He reached in between two of those bales, pulled out two packs of Camel cigarettes, and a box of matches. Just like a pro he took one of those cigarettes, struck a match and lit up. He leaned back against one of those straw bales and like the Marlboro Man began inhaling that cigarette like it was the best thing he had ever tasted.

He had been caught red handed. I jumped out from my hiding place and yelled, “I'm telling daddy!” I turned and took off toward the store. I don’t know how he did it, but that fat little smoking machine almost caught me before I spilled the beans to our dad. I don’t remember what my daddy did to Mike, but whatever it was it didn’t stop him from smoking. That’s the way my little brother was put together; he always colored outside of the lines. He still does.

My mother was a color inside the lines person. She worried that Mike was not making a good impression on others. But as it turns out, his unconventional way of coloring his life’s picture has made a good impression on hundreds if not thousands of lives. Yes, my brother and I are very different. We are proof that God uses inside the lines people, and he uses outside the lines people. God had a plan for both of us, and he has blessed us and our families. If our mother were still alive she would be proud of us, but she would continue to worry about us, especially Mike because he most certainly does not color inside the lines.

I want to congratulate my little brother because in about two weeks will be retiring from teaching. That will be a sad day for Tates Creek Middle School in Lexington Kentucky. Students, teachers and the administration really love him, and they will hate to see him leave. I love the way you color little brother!