Brothers
~ by Jeff Tryon
Our personalities, dispositions, character, and outlook on life are shaped by early family relationships.
I was born the third of four brothers and grew up in a tight-knit, nuclear family, in a homogenous rural community. Growing up, brothers spend more time with one another, by far, than with any other human beings. The times you spend with your brothers are from the formal to the extremely intimate— happy, sad, bored, afraid, brave, triumphant— the entire range of emotions.
I grew up extremely close with my brothers, in the splendid rural isolation of Brown County. With the exception of school, we spent almost all of our time with each other, playing in the woods and fields, or, on rainy days, in the old cabin that sat out back.
My parents were both born at the end of large family groups and were basically raised by their older siblings. They had a strong sense of family— almost clannishness. They expected the family to stick together and help one
54 Our Brown County March / April 2017