The first time I met Brian. I was 11 years old and had just moved to Redlands ( on January 11th) from San Bernardino. My new, foreign home was in the zone for Kimberly Elementary but, because I came in halfway through the school year, I had to finish 5th grade at Crafton Elementary, owing to a paucity of space or chairs or something. I had no friends, aside from my sister, and everybody knows sisters are dumb when you're 11. My classmates at Crafton were all on the other side of town, practically inaccessible outside of school. So one day, I took my ordinary basketball and walked the mile or so to Kimberly on a nice weekday afternoon. There, I encountered another kid on the courts. He was 12 or 13. He was also a recent transplant to Redlands (this time from Lebanon or Iraq, I can't exactly recall), very nice, and, like me, also terrible at basketball, without any kind of need to be good. As we attempted a game of Horse, this blond kid strolled in from the other end of the campus, with a multi-colored ball, walking directly toward us. He had unremarkable clothes, and unremarkable (to me) blond hair. They were the non-regulation basketball and his expression that stood out. He walked onto the asphalt from the grass with an ease and confidence that, without thought, caused me and my acquaintance to turn toward him and see what he had to say. You see, Brian lived just across the street, over past the kindergarten section, over there on Myra street, and he plays 'ball' here all the time. He was friendly and tall, and his face was pure. His expression was that of a person with smiling eyes and a curiosity about what he saw, yet there was no apart-ness; there was no sense that he was unfamiliar with the situation. We were on his court. It was as if my transplant friend and I were caught playing Horse in his back yard and he, walking in mid-way, was about to offer us soda and snacks, and suggest we restart with a competitive field of three. And so we did. And Brian smoked us. He beat us both at Horse, Ox and (hehe) Ass (it's a real animal, so it's ok!). We even did a two-on-one game on the half-court, and he still won, spinning and dribbling better than two people. By the time the sun was getting low and we all knew we had to head back home, Brian had managed to befriend two strangers, take them to school in shots from the three point line, and impress me with his obvious intelligence and sagacity. He chatted us up in-between every basket. He walked away that late afternoon, with this red, white and blue basketball tucked under his right arm, his head up, and a bounce to his step that showed me he was looking forward to what was over on Myra, at home. I clearly remembered Brian when I saw him on the first day of sixth grade, when we both wound up in Ms. LaPorte's class at Kimberly, which mixed the GATE kids with the "at-risk" kids. (Aside: this was an ideal environment for the impish.) Brian, although popular and excellent, and knowing ALL of the sixth graders (including Mr. Hasset's class) remembered me, too. He introduced me to my friends. He supported me in both academic pursuits and in getting around Ms. LaPorte's regulations in the pursuit of adolescent hilarity. He got me in to reading more. He made me laugh. He made me think. He challenged me when he felt like it. I respected him, at an age when respect was something school administrators talked about when they said blah achievement blah future blah. But on the court, while the sun started at 40 degrees and dropped to five degrees, I met Brian Glassco. That was 23 years ago, and he has been, and continues to be, my brother. I have hours more of stories, and anyone is welcome to contact me and hear more. I'll remember them until it's my turn.