He Ain's Heavy, He's My Brother

Denny is one of the fat guys and here is his take on the City tournament Championship named after his identical twin and former member of Hollies' Terry Sylvester being in concert on the same night.

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Last night Terry Sylvester of Hollies was in downtown Kokomo singing "He ain't Heavy he's my Brother" which was one of the Rock anthems for peace and helping your fellow man in the early 70's in the height of the Vietnam War.

Ten miles away in Greentown 2500 people were watching a youth baseball tournament named in his honor. My identical twin brother David loved youth baseball more than anyone I have ever met and was involved with it for 35 of his 42 years on earth. He played, coached and poured his heart into writing about youth baseball in the local newspaper the Kokomo Tribune. David would tell anyone that would listen that Youth Baseball was all about the kids having fun. David also loved the British Invasion and the many groups that came across the pond to change the face of music in the sixties and early seventies.

David is smiling from Heaven this morning because I know he would have been torn last night if he was still living. I know he would have been covering the City Championship in Greentown for the Kokomo Tribune which would have been just the Kokomo Tribune's 53rd edition and his name would have been missing. He also would have been thinking about Terry Sylvester being on stage in downtown Kokomo at the Haynes Apperson Festival singing the great Hollies songs ,so I know he would have loved to have been in two places at once.
David loved the Hollies songs, including "Bus Stop", "Stop Stop Stop", "Carrie Anne", "Look Through Any Window", "Sorry Suzanne", "Long Cool Women" and "The Air That I Breathe". He would have missed "He Ain't Heavy, He's my Brother" more than any of the Hollies' and Sylvester's songs. David loved that song. We would always change the lyrics in high school when David and I were rolling down Washington Street in our silver vega with the Hollies Greatest Hits blaring from our cassette player and wailing "He's Heavy.... he's my Brother".

Yes David would have been the third fat guy and was very comfortable in his skin. He was heavy. He could not carry a tune.. But loved the Hollies and British Rock music.

Someone asked me tonight what my identical twin brother David would have thought of two teams from Russiaville playing in the City Championship which has been renamed the David A. Kasey Memorial Youth Baseball tournament. The point was that no Kokomo teams were in the final just Russiaville teams.

I started thinking about that before the game last night. David lived in Russiaville on a farm for two years of his life with friends Steve Geiselman, Blake Burgan, and Pat Pope, so I know he felt a connection to the town of Russiaville. The two teams involved Stout and Sons and Mike's Pizza would have been fine with him. Stout and Son is sponsored by one of David's favorite people Jeff Stout someone that David officiated with and watched play youth baseball at Lafayette Park Little League. He would have been fine with Mike's Pizza. He loved going to Mike's with my family. He once found out Mike's sold Elephant ears and surprised my kids with about eight of the biggest Elephant ears you have ever seen. He also loved the county fair experience ,especially elephant ears and lemon shake-ups but of course he bought these particular elephant ears in the middle of October.

The reason David is smiling from Heaven this morning is because he was able to see both the tournament that graces his name and David also heard every number Terry Sylvester did last night including "He Ain't Heavy He's my Brother."

Denny
One of the fat guys