I had an older brother, Steve (1943-2011) whom I idolized. I had no choice really, but I really did idolize him. Steve was one of those rare birds who was genuinely nice and smart, and who was a hard worker too. In other words, it would do no good to resent him, even as I, the younger brother (he was seven years older), was known by everyone we knew in common as “Steve’s kid brother”. Either Steve’s virtues fell upon me too, or not, but nowhere in the world I grew up in was there anything but love and admiration for my older brother.
Steve had “the calling”, meaning priesthood in our very Catholic family. When he announced late in his senior year of high school that he would enter the seminary in the fall, my parents’ hearts swelled with pride. Steve was not an ordinary human – once he got a traffic citation for a rolling stop, and Mom said “That will never happen again.” It was as if the parent-child relationship had reversed, as both Mom and Dad would look to Steve for advice as their other three sons struggled in life and passage into maturity.
I am reading this book on the presumption that no one else I know will do so. I’ve worked my way up to page 150, and when i say “worked” I mean less than that, as it is both interesting and annoying. It covers the history of the Beatles from a fan’s perspective, one that idolized them and believed in certain aspects of the group that I’ll list below. It’s annoying in that in order for me to believe every word of it, I would have to be quite stupid or, as with a good movie, offer up willing suspension of disbelief. There is no “Billy Shears,” there was no death of the original Paul, and no replacement. There were two Paul’s, 
Piece of Mindful 