Tim

By the time my cousin Tim was sixteen, he looked and sounded like Norman Fell.

Every comment, every response was given with great drama. A deep sigh, an exaggerated roll of the eyes and a sarcastic remark were commonplace. Tim had no time or patience for the nonsense of others. He did, however, have plenty of time for his own.
It's really no mystery that Grampa Irish called him That Friggin' Kid.

From day one, it seems, Tim was stubborn, ornery, mouthy. He didn't care who you were; no amount of authority would reign him in. He was even daring enough to take on my father.

According to legend (as this was before I was born), Tim and his brother were visiting my parents. True to form, Tim was fidgeting, goofing around. My father sternly warned him to 'sit his fanny down and eat', while pointing at lunch for effect. Tim looked my father directly in the eyes and said, "Get. Your. Finger. Out. Of. My. Soup."

Tim was four at the time.

By age fifteen, Tim was engaging in dangerous, yet intriguing, behavior. While some kids huffed glue or smoked pot, Tim was up to creative mischief. A favorite challenge for Tim was to see how many people he could sneak into the movies. The Drive In Movies. This involved large sedans - and shoving people into the trunk.

Most people expected his need for danger and excitement to escalate. I'm sure they pictured aggression, depravity, drunken behavior. I saw no harm, just a tweaked sense of humor - and no edit filter.

Thanks to Tim, I had a snark hero while growing up. I learned wit and eye rolling at his knee. I learned to call people "Friggin' Tahds". Tim was the wild, untamed, creative mouth of the family. I will always love him for just being himself.

The things I learned from his brother, Bill, are another story altogether.