Thomas Brown – 50th Reunion Essay

Thomas Brown

Highland Park, Illinois 60035

thbaeroplan@att.net

847-736-5655

Spouse(s): Mary Beth Evans Brown (1970)

Child(ren): Alice Brown (1983)

Education: Yale University ‘65-’67; Oklahoma State University BS Math ‘70; University of Southern California MSSM ‘74; Massachusetts Institute of Technology SMCE ‘76

National Service: Capt., US Air Force ‘70 – ‘75

Career: USAF pilot 5 years; United Airlines airport planning 17 years; aviation consultant 24 years

Avocations: Woodworking; Letterpress printing

College: Ezra Stiles

One hundred and twenty-five. As a math major this is just 5 cubed. To me it was a trip to Vietnam. We all remember them. In the late ’60s, my Oklahoma draft board was taking all numbers, 1 to 366; 125 was close to a certainty. But, even before the lottery system of 1969, Oklahoma was classifying all male college students with less than a B average as 1A. “Less than a B average” pretty well covered my two years at Yale; so, with Yale’s rising prices ($3,200 a year!), my academic status and a longtime longing to fly, I left Yale for Oklahoma State and Air Force ROTC.

Beyond friendships, my most lasting takeaway from Yale would be Vincent Scully and his magical lectures, who forever changed how I view the world (while a course paper trashed by a grad student grader probably ended thoughts of becoming an architect). A thank-you to Dean Thompson for trying to change my mind about leaving. “Two roads diverged,” the phrase overly known but undeniably true, and I embarked on a life probably much different from that of a Yale graduate; but then, who knows?

Fifty years on the issues of today seem different from our college years when so many pushed back on authority with new extremes of civil disobedience: youth against age, minority against majority. The unrest was palpable. With the rapid changes in technology, the problems of today do seem different. We have virtually immediate access to vast libraries of good and bad information; we are watched over in very personal ways by digital peeping toms; we have access to weapons once only in control of those meant to protect us; we think we are outsmarting nature. We’ve seen the Earth from beyond the Moon. Our grandparents, and theirs before them, probably said much the same; nonetheless, the issues and products of today envelop the world and bring about clashes of culture not easily reconciled in a world forever shrinking. Single-mindedness is often a powerful enemy.

Yale has remained a big presence in my life, initially just in memory and my subconscious and in letters and occasional calls to friends. In 1970, I married my sophomore Mount Holyoke sweetheart, met at those wonderful mixers in 1966. I learned to fly in Laredo, Texas, spent two summers over Vietnam in KC-135 tankers, achieved master’s degrees from USC and MIT, and settled in Chicago in 1976, working in aviation and airport planning. Years have passed, and many good friends have died; hardest for me was Yale classmate John Oleyer, lost to MS in 2006.

In 1983 I became father to daughter Alice, Williams ’05 and Chicago MA, now a passionate middle-school history teacher, and in 2017, father-in-law to Larry, an army veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now in school to become an army doctor. At their wedding, they danced a waltz Hollywood can only dream of. What a remarkable thing life is.