This is a quick post to wish the happiest of birthdays to my sweet baby brother, Josh. Today, Josh turns 30. Sometimes I still think of him as 10 — not for a lack of maturity, but because those were carefree days.

Josh also loves Downtown Jacksonville and photography, but he especially loves making movies. He’s made a couple of short films that have been set in Jacksonville, and one about zombies filmed in our hometown of Starke.

Recently Josh completed his philosophy degree at UNF and he has long wanted to enter seminary. He is compassionate and thoughtful and caring.

Somewhere there is an old photo of the two of us on Christmas morning. We received jointly a (toy) microphone and guitar, thus planting the seed of our shared love of karaoke.

For the Jaguars season this year, Josh and I attended nearly all the home games together. He ridiculed my Twitter habit but always told me what was happening at the north end of the field. (I couldn’t see that far and sometimes replays were slow to be shown.)

Then there was the trip to the Bahamas, in which we and our mother were part of a crew that traveled through the Berry Islands on a 64-foot sailboat. We snorkeled, swam, fished, and bathed in the ocean with a bottle of Joy dish detergent. When we visited the island of Bimini, we had a nice dinner at the marina restaurant. Then, we went to the Compleat Angler, a bar in a house that locals said was either owned or occupied by Ernest Hemingway. While playing the ring-toss game, we heard shouts of “OJ! OJ! OJ!” and went to the bar to watch the television screen. O.J. Simpson and a friend were driving down a highway in California, pursued by police, all at such a slow pace as to think we were in a slow motion daydream.

Happy birthday to the best little brother anyone could ask for!

(This title comes from a long-ago trip we took to Disney World around Josh’s birthday. There was a parade celebrating Donald Duck’s birthday, and Josh always loved that character.)

Josh and Beth