While Victor had a fantastic teacher in his mother and father, he also had one in his brother Joseph. Joseph was older and unlike their father had a much calmer demeanor. Now that is not to say that their father was irrational or quick-tempered. No he was more passionate and could have flairs of temper if he felt strongly about something. This was rarely, if ever, aimed at the family. But Joseph never seemed to get ruffled about much of anything. And as I said he was a key teacher in Victor's life. One example was on a day when he discovered Victor going through his things trying to find Joseph's marbles because he had lost all of his. A lot of brothers would have been mad at their little brother going through their things period much less trying to take something that did not belong to him. Instead he asked what Victor was doing and when Victor explained that he had lost all his marbles to this new kid, he related how he had experienced the same thing. But he said that kid taught him how to play and not only that he learned about strategy. Part of the problem for Victor and the other kids was that the new guy kept doing things with marbles that gave him an advantage the other kids could not seem to achieve like switching his marbles up in the game to get better shots. When he would switch his marble he ended up being able to shoot all the marbles out of the circle leaving all the other kids just staring at him dumbfounded. Joseph told Victor that rules could be established before the game started that eliminated that kind of thing. It could be anything that seemed fair and in this case it was the "no-switchies" rule meaning whatever marble you start with is the one you play the whole game. Victor was amazed and could not understand how one could just make up their own rules for a game. Joseph said that they could if they voted on it and the majority agreed. This was amazing news to Victor. It would end up literally being a game changer for him. Not just because it improved his game, it also made him be seen as a fair person and if the other kids (and people in general) saw him as a fair person they were more willing to go along with his suggestions.But before he could start Joseph taught him some better techniques and emphasized that Victor would have to practice a lot. Not only that he told him as he was practicing the new techniques that he should not play a game at school for two weeks. Joseph said it would give hime time to watch and learn some things from the other players. One more interesting nugget Victor learned from these lessons from Joseph was that their father had paid the kid that beat Joseph out of all his marbles how to play. Their father did not view kids games as trivial ways to spend their time but as training for real life and so he felt it was worth while to spend money on Joseph learning the game.
Well Victor did master marbles and when he was ready to play he introduced all the techniques Joseph had taught him. It worked like a charm. He won big time. And he could have gone on winning and gotten real cocky about it too. But it was Joseph and family wisdom to the rescue again. Joseph warned him not to brag and to let the other guy win every now and then. Letting others win every now and then would guarantee he still had someone to play because otherwise they would have given up hope on winning and they would have thought he was a jerk for bragging about it.
I loved how patient Joseph was with Victor throughout his life. He loved his little brother so much that he wanted his success and happiness. Victor rarely if ever found that in the teachers he had through school. And I know that there will be students that will challenge my patience, but I hope to be able to love them enough(even if I don't like them) to be able to guide them to the next level of their education. I may be a light to them and never know it so I have to keep that in mind.
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