Happy Birthday, Ben!

My brother is 23 today.

Here he is on the day he came home from the birth center. I'm pretty sure I got more than my fair share of that cake.

There is an oft-told story in our family: When Ben was born, I was staying with Ellie, a family friend. She had promised to bring me to McDonalds for dinner — a rare treat. When my dad called to say that I had a baby brother, Ellie told me the good news, to which I replied, "I don't want a baby brother, I want a hamburger!"

As you can see in the picture at the top of the page, Ben was never a small baby. I was somewhat small for my age and up until I hit age 10, people routinely mistook us for twins. It used to annoy me, but now that I see pictures like this one, I can forgive the mistake:

Now, Ben works for a group that runs voter registration drives (no, not ACORN), so today we'll find out if they did a good job. I don't think he was born on a Tuesday, but perhaps he was destined for voter turnout work.

So, happy birthday, Ben. Use that birthday wish to give us a good result tonight.