Doug's Roast

Last night we headed north to a little place off the beatened path called "Bothwell." It's a tiny town outside the fairly small town of Tremonton. My oldest brother Doug turned 40, and his wife invited us all for dessert and a "roasting" of Doug.

I'm sorry I forgot my camera, but anyone who knew Doug, he looks the same, but he's now sporting a goatee because his wife thinks it's "sexy." They're stuck in the 90s.

Doug is a singular person. He was basically one of the biggest influences on my psyche since birth to age 17. Once he married, we didn't see him as much, so his orbital force was snapped, like the moon falling away from Earth.

Doug is the living definition of gregarious, optimistic, and fun. He never takes himself seriously and is quick to forgive and focus on the enjoyable parts of life. And he's super goofy and there are TONS of things to roast him about. A few include:

• He was kicked off the bus as a kindergartner for saying, "King Kong plays ping-pong with his ding-dong." He couldn't get back on the bus until he wrote an apology letter to the bus driver.
• He loves Star Trek and Star Wars.
• He is drawn to 7/11 Slurpees like a moth to flame. He never passes a 7/11 without stopping and buying one.
• Have you ever known someone who buys the movie theater pickles? (The movie theater has pickles, you ask? Yes, they do.) Doug buys one every time he goes to the movies.
• He flunked out of Ricks College with a .8 (or was it less?) grade point average. (After his mission he turned it around and actually got an engineering degree from USU to the amazement of my parents.)
• Doug cannot spell his way out of a wet papersack.
• Doug's first kiss was at the age of 23 when he played the part of a wood sprite in our church's play. He got a kiss from the princess. His next kiss didn't come until a year later when he met his to-be wife Sherri, who instantly made up for lost experience. (It was gross, to say the least.)
• Doug and a couple of others painted the "87" on the high school's roof when they graduated.
• Doug is responsible for daring Brian (one of my other brothers) into near death on at least three occassions: walking across the "frozen" Snake River, jumping off cliffs at Cauldron Lyn, and pulling him behind the family van with a sled attached to a rope that was attached to the van. Brian would take any dare, and Doug exploited that.

When I say Doug was the best brother in the world for my early growing up years, I'm not exaggerating. When he came home from his mission, he lived at home for a couple of years while he went to CSI (College of Southern Idaho, not Crime Scene Investigation). Every Monday night during those years, we would head over to the church and play volleyball. We set the net to the men's height. I think Doug had secret desires to make the men's Olympic volleyball team. Because of it, I was able to make the varsity volleyball team my junior year.

Doug was the type of brother that didn't mind his younger siblings hanging out with him. He usually encouraged it.

"Who wants to go with me to Dairy Queen?" He'd ask. We'd all volunteer.

Also during those years, he was in charge of taking us cleaning the buildings as part of the family custodial business. Doug loved discussing what he was learning in his classes while we were cleaning. We had discussions about centripital verses centrifugal forces, Calculus equations, and the meaning of 2 Nephi. Really, no subject was off limits. Doug knew something about everything, and if he didn't, he faked it. Doug's philosophy was to answer every question, even if he was wrong, with conviction: it kept the riff-raff from questioning his authority.

After cleaning, Doug almost always treated us to either a Slurpee or a Dairy Queen treat. I idolized Doug. He had this green sweatshirt that read, "I'm Okay, You're a Dink." When he left on his mission, I wore it at least once a week. I thought it was the funniest shirt of all time, mostly becaue it had belonged to Doug.