One and the Same by Abigail Pogrebin

way.
    â€œYes, but I don’t know if that’s translated in the ways that it has for him. I mean, he left football and went right to a great job at NBC News. I don’t have that opportunity like he does. It’s something I may do down the road, but I can’t possibly set it up the way he’s set himself up. That’s just about being in the number-one market in the country. The opportunities to groom yourself here are not the same as they are there. … And he’s good at what he does—for no reason! He never had any formal training other than jumping into the fire. I don’t know if my jumping into the fire here would be as fruitful.”
    Is he surprised that Tiki’s had such a smooth career-change? “No.” He smiles. “He’s good at everything.”
    Does he look at Tiki and say, “He has skills I don’t”?
    â€œYes. He has learned skills that I don’t have. Tiki is much more cerebral than I am. He’s an intelligent dude, picks up things very quickly. It’s been that way our entire lives. For the most part, I was the twin that was beating on his door, saying, ‘I can’t figure this homework out.’ He was like, ‘Come on, you’re stupid; it’s easy.’ He’s always been more above-the-neck than I’ve been. But I’ve got a tough standard to keep up, because one of us has got to be the short end of the stick.”
    I tell Ronde that his mom remembers his childhood response when she suggested that he study five minutes more each night: “You’ve already got one geek in the family; you don’t need two.”
    â€œExactly.” Ronde nods. “And I don’t know if that was self-conscious or intentional. I don’t know if I was saying to myself, I don’t want to be like him, or, I want to be
exactly
like him. Tiki always did everything so easily in school, and I felt like I was the one that had to work at it. Somewhere along the way, he became the smarter twin.”
    How many twins could say that without bristling? Very few. There’s this odd sanguineness when the Barbers describe their flaws and strengths, while other twins I spoke to seem to dodge and weave about who does what better. Maybe professional sports breeds bluntness; there’s no whitewashing whether you’re good enough to make the team, good enough to play (at first neither Barber made the starting roster), average or exceptional. The Barbers fling their compliments and gibes without seeming worried that it will color the larger picture—that they think the world of each other. The only time Ronde recoils at an adjective is when I offer one that might sound negative.
    I asked Ronde if he’d call Tiki more “ambitious,” and he seemed to stiffen. “Depends on how you use the word,” he cautioned, clearly protective of how I might label his brother.
    I clarified that by “ambitious,” I meant “itchy, always reaching for the next thing.”
    Ronde softened. “I could see that, yes; judging by the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing next, whereas he knew exactly what he was doing and he put a lot of thought toward it.”
    Tiki tells me why one day he was finished with football. “This wasn’t about ‘I hate my coach,’ or this or that; this was about quality of life. The year before I retired, when my wife asked me to play with my kids, and I didn’t want to, nor could I, I knew it was time to do something else. … I said, ‘If I’m fifty-two, like Earl Campbell in a wheelchair, who’s going to be cheering for me then?’”
    â€œHe didn’t talk about quitting all the time,” Ronde recalls, “but you could just feel it. Same way as when you play Ms. Pac-Man a thousand times and you’ve beaten it a thousand times and you’re like, All right, either Ms. Pac-Man 2 is coming out or