By FRED KRONER
How can two words, when put together in sequence, be equally befuddling and intriguing, pleasant and frustrating, as well as mystifying and appealing?
The above words – and many more, actually – would accurately describe the person to whom the references are made: Gregory Brown.
He was a childhood friend and a lifelong acquaintance, yet I never felt like I totally knew him.
Greg was perhaps the epitome of the word enigma.
When he passed away in the spring of 2017 at age 62, many of our classmates thought they had heard the last from him.
Not true.
Thanks to the efforts of a daughter, Erica Brown Peters, there is an epilogue.
A manuscript which Brown had penned more than a decade before his passing is now in print. It’s called “Life Along the Sangamon, Duke’s Run,” and was released in late June.
His daughter – though she lived in another state as an adult – was aware of his efforts to find a publisher and continued the quest until she was successful, connecting with Page Publishing.
The book has two parts, the first focusing on his upbringing in Mahomet – and his run of the village – at a time when there were barely 1,300 residents.
The second section, written much later, is devoted to his life after leaving his hometown.
A former Golden Gloves boxing champion, Brown served in the Army as an officer, spent time in Korea teaching English and traveled the world – multiple times – as he hawked merchandise to support his family. Brown was a former law student who also dabbled in the political arena while living in Oklahoma City. He served as the Oklahoma Reform Party State Chairman from 1999 to 2001.
We can now add “author” to his final resume.
Greg mailed me a copy of Part I of his work in 2002 and asked me to edit it.
I did, but he elected not to use any of my suggestions.
In 2003, he asked me to write the foreword, which was included in its entirety.
Greg’s life story is difficult to encapsulate, even in a book. It was a good call to have the two separate and distinct segments.
Many of my own memories are not shared in the book as we were seldom together outside of the classroom setting as teen-agers.
I recall him not always being prepared in class – as far as having his homework finished – but he could answer virtually any question the teacher asked.
I remember him participating in a sport almost every season. He wasn’t always the hardest worker, I was told, but was always among the team’s best athletes.
He liked it when the spotlight was on him.
Some of us will never forget the spring day he walked into English class carrying a guitar case, from which he removed a guitar and proceeded to play while sitting on the front edge of the teacher’s desk until he was encouraged to take a seat elsewhere.
Greg spent a year of high school – or at least most of the year – at a military school up north. After he returned, he thanked me for being the only one of his friends who wrote.
He was charismatic as he marched to his own drum beat.
When it was time for us to fill out paperwork prior to our graduation, Greg didn’t list a middle name and told the principal he didn’t have one.
On our official class graduation list, he was the only classmate listed without a middle name.
At some point, he began adding the initial ‘D’ to his signature and said it stood for ‘Duke.’ Whether it was a self-anointed title, we never heard.
As a younger married man, we often didn’t lock the doors when we lived on Division Street, in Mahomet, unless we were out of town on vacation.
I lost track of how often – and at random times from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. – the dog would alert us that something was amiss about the same moment the front door was flung open and Greg entered.
“Fredddiiieeee,” his booming and bellowing voice would break the silence.
His visits were always unannounced and ranged from a few minutes to a few hours.
By chance, my family dropped in on him in July, 1995 when we were in Oklahoma City for a national Appaloosa horse show. It was about three months after the Oklahoma City bombing and before taking us to see his house, Greg guided us to the bombing site, which was still cordoned off with yellow tape.
It was devastating to see, even from several blocks away.
By the time I reconnected with Greg, his life was that of a traveling salesman, who was usually hawking jewelry or trinkets.
He and his family lived for years in Oklahoma City, after relocating from New Orleans, but he spent hours on the road. He was a fixture at the Illinois State Fair and also set up booths at festivals in Arcola and Arthur on his annual trips back to Central Illinois.
When my son still lived at home, a trip to the State Fair one year, turned into a mini reunion.
“Fredddiiieeee,” the familiar voice rang out within seconds of the time we entered the southwest portion of the coliseum where vendors were set up.
Greg insisted on each of us walking away with some of his merchandise and wouldn’t accept payment, even though he was in town to make sales to help support his family.
He never knew a stranger and those who read his book will not consider him one. His story is a classic tale of a small-town boy who made it big, but never forgot his roots or his friends.
It is somehow fitting that his autobiography was released within months of what would have been his 50th class reunion. Like nearly two dozen others whom we once called classmates, Gregory Brown is gone, but not forgotten.
His 130-page book (priced at $15.95) will make certain that the memory continues. It is available through Barnes and Noble and can be purchased at this link.
