By Gil Zeimer

The Twins at 2

I have the good fortune of being born 32 minutes after my twin brother, David, at Mt. Zion Hospital. We’re third-generation San Franciscans.

The funny thing is, our Mom didn’t even know she was having two babies because she’d only gained 18 pounds. Her obstetrician kept telling her, “Small baby, lot of water.” But when I popped out after my brother, she screamed, “I can’t have twins, my house is too small!”

We also have a sister who’s three years older. When our Mom was pregnant with us, she told Jill, “You’re going to have a baby brother soon.” Our sister had asked Santa for a baby boy in a little red wagon, but when two of us arrived, she immediately squealed, “I don’t like David… send him back.”

We didn’t look alike as kids and don’t now, though we do look like brothers. He was always dark-haired with brown eyes; I was blonde with blue irises.

Today, we’re both grey-haired and follically challenged. In the movie “Twins”, Arnold Schwarzenegger said of himself and Danny DeVito in his Austrian accent, “Even our own motha couldn’t tell us apaht!” Today, I’m about an inch taller and many friends say I look a bit younger.

Growing up, twins were not as common as they are today because of IVF. In fact, there was only one other pair in our high school class.

Here are some of my fondest memories of our seven+ decades together…

My brother and I had separate cribs, side by side, in our bedroom. One day when we were about two, I climbed out of mine, then helped David climb out of his crib, and we crawled down the hall, much to our mother’s surprise.

She dressed us in matching outfits until we mutinied at age seven.

Every year, our Dad mailed holiday cards to family, friends, and clients featuring a photo of my siblings and me. One year, when Davy Crockett was the “King of The Wild Frontier” on The Disneyland series on ABC, we both dressed up in twin buckskin outfits, complete with artificial coonskin hats.

We lucked out at our double Bar Mitzvah when we were 13. We did half the work, but raked in double the gifts. Each only had to recite two of the four prayers and half of the Torah portion. We had a great dinner party that night and, feeling like the men we were claimed to be, dressed in matching tuxedos. It was the first time I ever felt like an adult.

At Abraham Lincoln High School, we were both popular and held various class and student body officer positions, making us comfortable as public speakers, sometimes addressing up to 3,000 students at a time.

Twins often share the same feelings. I like to joke that one night, David went out on a hot date and I found myself suddenly taking a cold shower.

Combined, we had an extraordinary number of wisdom teeth. I had 8, David did not share my dental acuity and merely had 5. Meanwhile, our sister had 7.

Ironically, our family dentist who extracted our teeth and our primary care physician were also male twins, about 25 years our seniors. They were born 20 minutes apart, before and after midnight, on the cusp, so they had different birthdays AND astrological signs.

David both stayed in The City after high school. For the first two years, he attended City College of San Francisco, while I matriculated at San Francisco State University. We were both at SFSU for our Junior and Senior years, graduating after four years each.

On our 21^st birthday, we walked into a liquor store. David bought Southern Comfort with his ID. I then showed mine to buy a six-pack. The clerk said, “I can’t sell you that beer. You’re using the same ID as that guy because it’s got the same birthday.” I explained that we were fraternal twins, not identical, showed him both driver’s licenses with our different names. He finally let me buy my beer, but on the condition that we never return to that store. We didn’t.

My brother and I worshipped the sun like our parents did and have both had skin cancer. We held annual “tan” contests to see who could get the darkest to win the “Golden Skin” medal. This photo was taken on the last day of summer when we were 19 and had spent the entire summer in Marin County, then three weeks in Hawaii. Above our swim trunks, we weren’t wearing white underwear – those are our tan lines!

The day after we saw “Jaws” in 1975, we flew to Kauai for a vacation. David was so freaked out about sharks that he wouldn’t swim in the ocean. Instead, he’d wade in up to his knees. I’d sneak up behind him and hum the John Williams score, “Duh-dah, duh-dah, duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh…” and he’d freak out!

We were “wombmates” first. Next, we were roommates in our parents’ home, then in rental houses until we was 33. That’s when I moved away to Dallas, and David’s girlfriend moved in. On the fourth day I was there, my Texan girlfriend dumped me while David got engaged –– and this was actually on our birthday. He got married six months later; I walked down the aisle with my wife 10 years after that.

Life gets in the way, but we get together as often as possible, including on our birthday. David has two daughters, one of whom has fraternal boy-girl twins, who were born only one minute apart compared to our 32 minutes. I have one daughter.

This photo was taken at his oldest daughter’s wedding. We were 63, our Mom was 95.

My brother followed our father’s footsteps and worked in the women’s clothing industry, while I became an advertising writer. He retired 10 years ago, and I’ve pivoted out of advertising and into part-time travel and story writing.

On one particular birthday when we were about 55, we were both all alone, a continent apart. I was on a business trip to New York and ate dinner at a table for one in a restaurant near LaGuardia Airport. The same day, David ate a sandwich alone in his car because no one else from his office was available to join him.

Today, we’re still best friends and still talk several times a week. Like very long-time couples, we often finish each other’s sentences. We also accidentally butt-dial each other frequently, and he often calls me just as I’m picking up the phone to call him. Last week, he even texted a selfie of him growing a goatee, which started around the same day I began growing mine.

Finally, an author named “Anonymous” wrote: “It’s double the giggles and double the grins, and double the trouble if you’re blessed with twins.”

And I’ve been blessed with my brother and best friend my whole life.