My Madness

My brother Peter was a wondrous boy, the youngest, brightest, and bounciest of three kids: IQ 165, boundless curiosity, confidence, and mental energy, bold in the best sense, and less than optimally protective of life and limb, fearing neither God nor man. A school exercise he wrote when he was five or six demonstrated a religious sensibility well on its way to being fully formed: “Jesus fly over the stabel on Christmas morning. I hate chirch.”