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So here's the set up: A generation grows up attending their family reunions, weddings and other gatherings surrounded by dozens of relatives and family friends, learning all sorts of minute details about themselves along the way. Hilarity ensues.
It usually begins when a distant cousin, unsuspecting and recently married into the family, comes up to my little brother Trent and I to ask us a seemingly innocuous question about our resemblance.
"Are you two brothers?" they will say.
We will grin like idiots. On most occasions, we will reply in the affirmative. On that occasion when the person seems raring to play along, we offer up a different answer.
"No," we will roar in unison, giggling and giddy, "Yes! Score!"
That small fly on the wall will shake its head in disbelief.
References to "A Night At the Roxbury" aside, the family resemblance discussion does rear its hilarious head at each and every one of these gatherings. It's scary how closely alike we all look. It probably has something to do with the fact my mother's family lived for generations within the same small area of Nova Scotia in Canada.
The personality traits are there too: We are merry, we are just a tiny bit zany, and we are perpetually in search of a good time to be had by all. All our mothers have gone to great lengths to make sure we have ample nourishment, and the chefs extraordinaire have numbered many.
The similarities have long been there, but I only recently became aware of the stark contrasts between mine and every other family in the known universe. No one in my clan has ever had any occasion to duck when walking through a doorway.
We are short.
I always knew I and my immediate family members were vertically challenged. It just never occurred to me that the rest of the world was towering above us. I guess it's hard to survey different heights at a family reunion where you are surrounded by a group with the same hereditary traits.
My family's basketball team is desperately in search of a center. My brother, at five foot 10 inches tall, also the youngest member of his generation, is leading the way to our championship.
Our mission now is apparently to just keep our low line of sight on the family over the next generation. I've also invested in a pair of platform shoes for the next group photo.
Brad Gary is the city and politics reporter for the Columbia Basin Herald. If his family does start a basketball team, he wants to play at power forward.
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