I lost a good friend last week, and he’s been on my mind a lot in the days since. I didn’t have the sense that his death was imminent, although I should not have been surprised. He was a generation ahead of me, and as I think about it, I realize there have been subtle signs that Dr. Myland R. Brown was wearing out.
Our friendship has been unusual and stretches back at least half my life. I don’t recall how we met, but I suspect it was either in the library or at the post office, and I’d bet a dollar to a donut that he struck up the first conversation. Brown, as he referred to himself, never met a stranger.
We’d stand in the post office and discuss the state of the world, our shared concerns about the plight of today’s youth, and his distress over the direction of education in America. Academia was his franchise; he’d had to move mountains to chase the opportunity for schooling and reached a personal summit when he claimed his doctoral degree in history from Ball State University, the first African-American candidate to do so. More than once through the years he shared with me his conviction that the pursuit of education was the key to personal fulfillment and a successful life. It was a value instilled by his father when the younger Brown was a child picking prickly bolls in the hot, dusty cotton fields of the Wiregrass for a scant $2 per day. “My father said, ‘I want you to go to that classroom every day, do what the teachers say, and get your assignments’,” he’d tell me. “‘And by following instructions, you won’t have to go through what you see your Daddy going through, because the bottom line is a good quality education.'”
He may well be the wisest man I’ve ever encountered, and I suspect a lot of that came from his dad. And he was generous with that wisdom, sharing the benefit of his broad experience with whomever he thought needed to hear it.
In many unexpected ways, Dr. Brown reminded me a great deal of my own father, who died at 60 more than 30 years ago. Sometimes I’d hear my dad in Dr. Brown’s voice, as they spoke in similar cadences and employed the same idioms and expressions, and more than once I’ve wondered if Dr. Brown’s friendship and influence was a sort of divine substitution for a father taken too soon.
Dr. Brown would stop by my office every now and then to visit, and would always bring some sort of remembrance, usually a gaudy tie, and would hoot and cackle with great humor for a while. Then he’d depart, leaving a mood much lighter than when he arrived.
Dr. Brown was nothing if not joyous.
His mind worked in metaphor and he appreciated those who could keep up, which is the sort of nerdiness I’m drawn to. He never called me by name, but referred to me as “Coworker,” which I assume spoke to the notion that he and I were colleagues in a greater movement to uplift humanity.
Occasionally we’d have lunch together. He’d phone me up and without any initial chitchat would get straight to the point: “Coworker!” he’d bellow, “meet me at the Lopsta!” The man loved Red Lobster.
My phone rang one afternoon, and it was Dr. Brown: “Coworker! Brown here. Meet me down here at the Greyhound, I’ve got something for you.” Then he hung up. I drove a few blocks to what I thought was the bus station, but it was now a lawyer’s office. I pulled over and Googled “Greyhound, Dothan,” and saw it had moved to the Flying J truck stop, so I changed my route. I found Dr. Brown sitting alone in a small waiting area, and he unleashed a boisterous guffaw when he saw me.
He wanted to talk, so I listened. He was headed to Texas to visit family. I mused that the bus trip would be long and grueling and asked why he didn’t fly instead. He looked at me like I’d suggested he jump off a cliff.
“Brown stays on terra firma,” he said sternly, and that was the end of that line of debate.
When COVID arrived, Dr. Brown “went to the house.” and I’m not sure he left again except when he had a doctor’s appointment or some other necessary engagement. A time or two I’d drop by and stand in the driveway visiting through the screen door. Dr. Brown would pull up a ladderback chair and hold court. Once he was shirtless, and his bony frame was startlingly similar to my father’s torso as his illness tightened its grip.
Despite Dr. Brown’s self-imposed exile, he never lost touch – he had a telephone. Or several, it seems, as his number changed several times in the last few years.
Long before he’d sequestered himself, our relationship thrived on telephone ping-pong. He’d call after work hours and at all hours, leaving messages on my voicemail, sometimes the long soliloquies of a person with something on their mind and no one handy to hear it. I’d return the call and he’d pick up his thought right where he left it, even if it were days later.
Late one afternoon, I phoned him up and when he answered, I thought I may have awakened him. “Dr. Brown!” I said, “It’s your co-worker!”
“Huh?” he answered. “Is this, is this Caesar at the Rubicon?” He cackled wildly. “Is this Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants?” More laughter. He carried on for a few minutes, talking about something he’d seen on television or asking about some current event. Nothing got past him.
Suddenly it occurred to me that he may well have given up driving. “Dr. Brown, it’s Election Day, you know,” I said. “Did you go vote?”
“No, no I haven’t been,” he said thoughtfully.
“Well, get your shoes,” I replied. “I’m gonna pick you up in about 30 minutes and take you to vote.”
He laughed with great delight before hanging up. It was starting to get dark when I pulled into his fenced backyard and up the drive to the back door. He made his way down the steps, dressed to the nines, then stopped by his truck and retrieved a walker from the backseat. That was something new, I noted.
Once he got situated in the car, I asked him where he went to vote. He pointed over his back fence to a building facing the next street maybe 100 yards away – the neighborhood recreation center. “Right there,” he said, erupting in boisterous laughter as if he’d pulled one over on me. I drove him to down the street and waited in the car while he passed the time with friends and neighbors and, presumably, cast his ballot. “Take your time,” I said, “I don’t have to be anywhere.”
A half-hour later he trudged back to the car. He seemed weary.
“Hey, Dr. Brown, have you eaten supper? We can go to the Lopsta – I’m buying,” I said. I expected the wild cackle in response, but he said he wasn’t hungry and didn’t have any errands he needed, so I drove him the length of the block and back to his door. It was my first realization that the brightness of Dr. Brown was beginning to wane.
I was dismayed to learn of his death last week. We were in the middle of a years-long conversation, and I owed him a phone call. However, in the days since, my dismay has turned to comfort as I realize that Dr. Brown had touched countless lives and, more important, had ongoing conversations with legions of friends he kept up with through regular phone calls. I miss him already, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Neither is he. Dr. Brown is standing at the edge of the Rubicon, explaining to Caesar the implications of crossing the river before them. He’s riding a pachyderm alongside Hannibal, cresting the Alps with the Carthaginians to face the Roman Army. He’s alongside William the Conqueror, leading warriors on a sojourn to sack England. I look forward to hearing about it all one day in a gleeful narrative punctuated by wild guffaws – hopefully over a heavenly plate of fried fish and garlic cheddar biscuits.
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