Brother, Brother

 

My memoir; mostly truth, part fiction, is a tribute to my older brother Rich, whom I will always consider a casualty of the post-Vietnam era. Missing in America for the past 45 years, he mysteriously reappears along with his ’66 GTO convertible and coerces me to retrace the cross-country route he took back in ’70 to settle in a commune in Corrales, New Mexico.

 

With me taking control behind the wheel and him in the passenger seat, I recreate some of his experiences as a flower child/Jesus freak. We visit places like The Badlands, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons, Elko, Nevada, the Haight/Ashbury District, Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Corrales, New Mexico in an attempt to understand the life he chose, which was so drastically different from mine.

 

Along the way we relive memories of the brief 18 years we shared growing up in the absence of our alcoholic father in a struggling single parent household of five kids. In exploring our relationship, I confront several personal issues surrounding the role Rich played in shaping who I am and the impact his disappearance has had on my life.