Courtesy our pal, Kodachrome

Our fan turned friend, Kodachrome, who sends us all of the delightful Photoshopped pics of Chuck and me, also sends us songs we’ve inspired him to record, photos of stupid nature he takes on his hikes and links to interesting news stories. He’s become a buddy to us, even though we have no idea what he looks like and have never held a verbal conversation with him.

I saw this morning would be no different than any other when I found a link to a story in the British tabloid The Sun about the world’s oldest conjoined twins, Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, from Kodachrome waiting in my inbox.

The brothers Galyon have lived to the ripe old age of 57 so far, despite sharing a single body from the digestive tract down, including their sexual organs. They’ve had kind of a rough life — even as far as conjoined twins go. When their mother deserted them during their childhood, their father was left to raise them alone; he decided not to separate the boys, for fear of losing Ronnie. They were kept out of school; the Dayton, Ohio school board’s reasoning being that they offered too much of a distraction, so they are illiterate.

What I find most interesting is the relationship that developed between the brothers. When they fight, they really fight, raining blows on one another without the possibility of retreat, but when they make up, it’s beyond sweet. Check out this quote from their older brother about their arguments:

“‘When it finally runs its course, they’ll start crying because it’s over and they’ll both be bawling their little hearts out. One will reach over and kiss the other on the forehead and they’ve made up. When it’s done, it’s done.’”

It’s not like my curiosity is peculiar. Conjoined twins are fascinating. The Mutter Museum in Philly has a posthumous plaster cast of Chang and Eng Bunker on display, along with the preserved skeleton(s) of a pair of fetuses conjoined at the skull. Ronnie and Donnie have long been used to curious attention. While they were growing up, they watched TV in a trailer on the family land while paying onlookers stared at them. TLC’s featured a special on them and the Brits aired a documentary last March. Like I said, they’re fascinating.

The entire article’s worth reading; if you’re a big fan of human resilience, this’ll knock your socks off.

Here’s a clip from that TLC doc:

More on HowStuffWorks.com:
How Twins Work
How Human Reproduction Works
What was in Peter the Great’s cabinet of curiosities?