Cherokeean/Herald (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 149, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 20, 1998 Page: 3 of 16
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CHEROKEEAN/HERALP of Rusk, Texas—Thursday, August 20,1998—Page 3A
Review
M 'So There You Are'
takes a refreshing look
at times gone by
By Paul Ruffin
SPECIAL TO THE CHEROKEEAN/HERALD
In this fast-paced modern world,
aglitter with electronic gadgetry
that governs our lives from womb
to tomb, it is refreshing sometimes
to take a look at life when things
moved more slowly, when even in
the midst of contemporary war
there was room for sanity and se-
renity and humor. "So There You
Are: The Selected Prose of Glenn
Brown, Journalist," recently re-
leased by Texas Review Press of
Sam Houston State University, is
just such an opportunity.
"So There You Are" is a collection
of short essays, mostly newspaper
columns, written by Glenn Brown
over a period of almost 50 years.
He wrote the earliest piece when
he was a college student, the latest
one when he was dying.
Whether he wrote about his early
life in East Texas, his period of
incarceration in a prisoner of war
camp in Korea, or his later life in
Huntsville, Brown always enter-
tains with a sprightly prose remi-
niscent of the great American hu-
morist Mark Twain.
An astute observer of human
behavior, Brown had an incred-
ibly fine eye for detail and ear for
language. The people he writes
about, each and every one of them
quite real, are as finely wrought as
characters in the best of our fic-
tion.
The magic of Glenn Brown lies
in the way he can take the most
ordinary of situations and trans-
form them brilliantly through a
language whose diction and
rhythms are peculiar to him. It is
a sprightly prose that dances and
sings as it moves effortlessly
among the people he knew and
loved, and he is as comfortable
writing about a dog as he is a
president.
"So There You Are" is about
people in the act of being them-
selves: his dear wife Norma, the
men and women he grew up and
worked among, the crew at Cafe
Texan, the men he was impris-
oned with in Korea. The book
begins with the personal pieces
that involve Glenn and Norma
more directly than the others, then
goes into the war experiences and
their aftermath, presents the
pieces that focus on the Huntsville
scene, and concludes with essays
Glenn wrote about people in other
towns: Bedias, Bowden Camp,
Broom City, Canton, Comanche,
Crockett, Day's Chapel, Elkhart,
Grapeland, Hickory Grove,
Lovelady, Madisonville, Myrtle
Springs, Ovilla, Palestine, Pilgrim,
Rocky Mound, Rusk, Slocum, and
Texas City
Most of this book is humorous in
nature, the way Glenn Brown in-
tended it, but the humor lies not so
much in the events themselves as
the way he records them . Like
that master humorist Mark Twain,
Glenn had a special way with words
that allowed him to render in
memorable phrases the most prag-
matic of enterprises, from cooking
to burying. And Brown can be
tender, touching, and nostalgic, as
in the wonderful piece entitled
"Thoughts about Mother's Day,
May 7,1994" and in "Oh, For An-
other Holiday Chat with Pilgrim's
Women."
But these essays are not all hu-
morous and nostalgic. After
Glenn's return from Korea, he was
haunted by the attitude of the
media and Americans in general
toward the brave men who found
it difficult to distinguish between
the "police action" they were pre-
sumably involved in and "official
war."
Even when Glenn Brown writes
about something that troubled his
heart as much as the Korean is-
Bue, he is not scathing and bitter.
You can see his anger and frustra-
tion in "In Your Patience Possess
Ye Your Souls," "Time for Truth
about Pyoktong," and "He's No
Dreamer of Dreams, Beware of
Ignorant Scribblers"; but knowing
the suffering Glenn endured in
Korea, he must be granted the
right to register his angst over
what he Baw as stark injustice.
Even at his angriest, Glenn Brown
strikes with padded blows.
Glenn Brown was born Novem-
ber 13, 1930, to Walter 0. and
Lillie Marie Brown of Montalba,
Tex., he was the fifth of their six
children. The first two, baby girls,
died of pneumonia before their
second birthday, and Walter and
Lillie raised their four sons in
Anderson County.
Glenn attended school in
Elkhart, graduating in 1949. He
was captain of the football team
that year and
they were the
Regional
Champions for
the second time
in the school's
history. He was
class president
and class favor-
ite and held an
office in each
organization in
which he par-
ticipated.
Immediately
following
graduation he
joined the Air
Force and be-
came a radio operator on a B-29.
On Aug. 24, 1951 his plane was
shot down over North Korea and
he and his crew were forced to bail
out. All crewmen were captured as
they hit ground except the copilot,
who was never heard from again.
The next two years were spent
The memoirs of former Cherokeean/Herald editor
Glenn Brown, has just been published by the
Texas Review Press of Sam Houston State
University.
learning to survive in Korean P O
W Camp No. 2. Glenn, along with
hundreds of other young men from
America, England, Australia, the
Philippines and other countries,
was released in Sept. 1953.
After a slow ship trip back to the
States for debriefing and many
months of physical and mental
examinations in Brooks Army
Hospital in San Antonio, Glenn
became an American civilian
again.
Shortly after returning home,
he met the former Norma Norman,
also of Elkhart, and on May 8,
1954, they were married. His first
place of employment was in the
back shop of The Crockett Demo-
crat, in September, 1954, after
things fell through at the Demo-
crat; Glenn decided he wanted to
attend Sam Houston State
Teacher's College to study Jour-
nalism. He completed his B.S. de-
gree in Journalism in 33 months,
graduating in May, 1957.
Following graduation from
SHSTC, he moved his family to
Rusk and became a reporter for
the Rusk Cherokeean. He later
became editor of the weekly paper
and served that newspaper for six
years before moving to Abilene,
where he worked as a reporter for
'So There You Are' available through
Texas A&M Press, 1-800-826-8911.
Softbacks - $20, Hardbacks - $30
the Abilene Reporter News for a
short four months before he re-
turned to Sam Houston as Advisor
for The Houstonian and Instruc-
tor of Journalism.
In 1990 Glenn tried to establish
a newspaper, The New Sentinel,
in Elkhart, his home town. His
health would not allow him to put
in the long hours and strenuous
work such an endeavor requires
and only eight issues were printed.
In October, 1992, he presented
an article to the Huntsville Item
for their consideration and then
wrote weekly articles for that pa-
per until January, 1995.
During the 41 years of Glenn's
and Norma's marriage they raised
three daughters, Roxanne, Kathy
and Lori. They each married and
gave Glenn and Norma nine grand-
children: five girls and four boys.
Glenn died on November 14,
1995, one day after his 65th birth-
day. He was at home with his fam-
ily at the time of his death. His
gravesite is at Pilgrim Church in
Elkhart, the country Norma says
his heart really never left.
This is a book for reading and
treasuring and passing along. It
has the makings of a classic and
belongs in the home of every
Texan."
Paul Ruffin edited "So There You
Are."
At age
77fb
M Mt u/üi
Another ETMC First
■ Hearon
- g / went to the
doctors
time.
His doctor disc
F.B. discove
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'I never went to the doctor till I was 77 years old. But when the wife found out my brother has prostate
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F.B. S urologist sent him to the ETMC Cancer Institute.
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The ETMC Cancer Institute offers a treatment option that dra-
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F.B. Hearon made some new friends here.
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and after the first visit, everybody seemed to know me.
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Whitehead, Marie. Cherokeean/Herald (Rusk, Tex.), Vol. 149, No. 26, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 20, 1998, newspaper, August 20, 1998; Rusk, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth152386/m1/3/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Singletary Memorial Library.