Gay Brown, Terry Brown, and Lori Brown

00:06 My name is Lori Brown. I'm 30 years old today is May 6th 2016. We're in Washington DC and I'm talking to my parents gay and Terry Brown.

00:20 I'm Terry Brown. I'm 67. Today's date is May 6th 20016 2016 for me, Washington DC and Lori's father.

00:33 I am gay Brown. I am 67 years old also and it is May 6th 2016. We're in Washington DC and I'm here with my husband and my sweet daughter.

00:51 Lori

00:53 Your Facebook doesn't say your 67 years old. That's okay.

01:07 I thought it was the year of your birth. Not your age. Sure.

01:16 If I have some questions for you all.

01:19 So why don't you start by telling me about where you grew up and what life was like Dad? Why don't you begin was born in Beaumont, Texas? But we we lived in a little Community just outside of Beaumont called the media Texas just a little development about 10 minutes from from Belmont and it was pretty idyllic. My dad was a rice farmer and we had a nice little house but kind of a compound where the whole family was my grandfather and grandmother and aunt and uncle were all the next door. So we had quite a bit of property and had to a bar in on the back back of the property with usually a horse or two in the back and sometimes it like our two and it was a fabulous place to grow up. We had a vacant lot next door. We could play baseball as kids.

02:17 We had all the all the roads around us we could jump on her bicycle and anytime we wanted to ride down to the end of the road goes swimming in the in the canal if we wanted to one of my friends.

02:33 Grandparents had a gas company just a couple blocks away. And so they had grounds there where the trucks would come in and load up and so Chris and I would play a lot all around the property there, but that we played baseball next door football just did all kinds of things. The school was just a few blocks away but misses school bus, I walked across Highway 90, which was really the main artery used to West between New Orleans and Houston at the time and just had to be careful when you're crossing the street. So we did it even when we were six eight years old did it all the time and I even crossed the railroad tracks right next to the school. So it was a great place. I had three brothers and Dad's Farm was about 15 minutes away close to Port Arthur and

03:27 Would go out to the farm and I help help with the planning or help with the Harvest just had a great time. Blackbirds. He had a little Piper Cub j3 that we could fly in and I used all their service with some other friends. And so there was always airplanes around and and we enjoy that as well. So graduated in 67 and went to college at Lamar Lamar University in Beaumont work my way through as a police officer.

04:03 And I then went over to to eye Houston went to law school at South Texas for a couple years decided. I didn't really like to sketch your house and decided I was going to get in an honest business. So I got the insurance business and been in 74, which is where I met your mother. She was working for Blue Cross into trying to get in sales in the they didn't have very many females and sales department at that time and she quit lacrosse and went to work for the group that I work for and I'm actually trained her basically for about the first year and then she kind of went back to Blue Cross Arena Rochester should take a little bit about that too, but it was a great place to grow up and I had a bad grade youth.

04:53 Great childhood

04:55 No, sounds like it Mom. How about you tell me about where you grew out then what life was like

05:06 Well, my parents were both teachers and Educators. So my life was a little different. We didn't live in the same house the whole time. We were growing up and you're in a smaller City to we are the first probably eight or 10 years of my life. We will I was born in Marshall, Texas which is in deep east, Texas, but then after my dad got his Bachelor and master's degrees will then we move down to Sweeny which is in South Texas and he taught school there for several years until I was probably 10 or 12 years old and then we move to Palestine and we witches up in East, Texas and that's where my mom's family all lived in.

06:06 Dad brought bought some property and so we lived in a little Community called Slocum and he taught school there and then eventually mom also taught school there and he worked himself to be a principal and superintendent of the schools that he also had.

06:29 This Farm and Ranch.

06:33 And so

06:37 We I was the oldest of six children. So mainly my childhood a lot of it was taking care of children and brothers and sisters brothers, no brothers and sisters all these children. In fact, my youngest sister is 16 years younger than me and so near the closest and we're very very close. Yes, and it's funny because I would go shopping with Mom on the weekends and I was in charge of the baby and so we would be in the stores shopping in these ladies would come up to me and they'd say, oh is this your baby? And I say no it's my little sister and I thought I must look so mature and really they were thinking of this poor young girl. She's you know,

07:37 Little baby and she's 12. I look 12 years old when I was 16. So anyway, it was a lot of a lot of work with six babies and being from a teacher family. We didn't have a lot of money but Mom and Dad raised a lot of food, we always had vegetable gardens and fruit Gardens and Dad raise cattle. And so we you know put in the freezer and weak and a lot of our foods and the best part of growing up though was our summers. This was when teachers had three months off and so my dad's family all lived in California. And as soon as school was out we load all the children in the station wagon, and we would head for, California.

08:37 And we would literally spend two to three months out in California. And that was lots of fun because I got to see all of my cousins and my granddad would take his vacation and we would go to the national parks and we would camp out and we would have like six or eight tenths in a big circle and it was all my cousins and my aunts and uncles and my parents and grandparents and we would be there for like 2 or 3 weeks at a time and

09:10 It was it was just tons of fun seeing the beautiful mountains and the rivers and everything and the west coast and being with all my cousins. So I would say that was my most fun time of growing up was with my summer X so

09:32 And tell me how you got from when front from Slocomb from growing up in East Texas to Houston and in the insurance and because finding that guy because I think that your story of interesting. Yeah, it's it's pretty unique and interesting you were one of the first women hired by your company to be a salesperson. Well, I first went to work for Blue Cross is the is a in the accounting department. I was going to school I didn't have any type of scholarship. My parents definitely could not pay for my college. So I loved math in school in high school. So

10:19 I went to work in Dallas for Blue Cross Blue Shield in their accounting department and

10:31 So they help me to go to college. They would pay for your schooling as long as you made you no good grades. They would pay for your schooling. So I would work during the day and I would go to school at night. And so I transferred down to Houston and I transferred from an accounting job into the sales department and in the secretarial pool, and so this was in 1975. I would say 74.

11:20 So I moved to Houston in the sales. I mean yeah is the secretary and I worked with salespeople and I was working on my degree in marketing at University Houston. And so I was about to get my degree and I went to the sales manager and and he was very supportive of me. And I said when I get my degree, I want to be a sales rep for Blue Cross and he said well, you know.

11:53 We really need someone that has sales experience and I thought oh really and I never heard this before and at that time a requirement for all the Nail Canada know it was and at the time they did not have any sales at female sales reps in the state of Texas. And this was a group of over 250 sales reps for the State of Texas with blue Tails rash. If there are more people in the company sales in so I thought okay. He didn't say I had to have insurance sales experience. I just needed sales experience. So I called a cousin of mine whose husband worked for a golf company a sporting goods company and I thought

12:53 Can sell Sporting Goods equipment because I love sports in school. I took golf in college and tennis and I was basketball player in softball and volleyball in high school. So I knew a lot about sports so I called him and it just so happened that he had left his job and it gone to work for an insurance agency in Dallas and he wanted me to come and talk to them. And so I thought well, I'm not sure I can work for anybody but Blue Cross Blue Shield, I mean they had me totally in frame was brainwashed. And so I did talk to him and Terry was the

13:40 Manager of the Houston office and so long story short. I did leave Blue Cross and I did go to work for them for two and a half years, maybe two years and in that time.

14:04 The agency that he was working for did a lot of business with associations like the hairdressers Association and they had insurance plans for all of the hairdressers are dental groups or veterinarian groups, you know and all the veterinarian clinics and so I could make additional money if I brought in an association, so I got with my dad and some other guys and there was a new association called the small.

14:41 Community School Association and it was a kind of a

14:50 Runoff from tsta when you say, you know hybrid Texas community building over students probably less than 500 students less than 300. There are a lot of ways and so we

15:13 Long story short again. We got the association's business and I started competing with Blue Cross and we would go in and I knew a lot of the cells in the men across the state from different things when I was with Blue Cross and so I would go in and I'd say hello you no good to see you John and good luck on this bid proposal and we would get it and I kept saying who is that out there? And so anyway, they decided that I had enough experience in so then they finally hired me and I was the third female in the state of Texas, but I will say that the only when they interviewed me for a sales job

16:05 A good friend of mine was the first female sales manager in the state of Texas. And so she wanted me to come in her sales rep. And so she said I will be the sales manager if you let me hire who I want and so they she wanted me to apply for the job. Well, when I went in to apply, they said we want you to come to work for us, but you can work anywhere in the state of Texas but not in with Linda and so they didn't want because I think they were a little afraid. I'm did you ever did you ever take business from one of your former colleagues at Blue Cross and and how Goods it's did that feel.

17:04 Felt great because they could they didn't know me. I was just a little secretary, you know that that had worked for ourselves. So I knew more their names and their faces than they need me and so but they were they were happy to get me back and it was so it was a good experience but we back in those days. It was hard on women because even as a sales rep I

17:42 I had trouble getting credit cards. I couldn't get a credit card cuz you weren't married at the time cuz I wasn't married right I was a single woman, even though I had this good paying sales job. I can get a credit card and even gas credit card and so a friend of mine suggested that when I got a declination from one of the oil companies, she said right back and stay and just say I would really like for you to reconsider this application for a credit card and carbon copy the National Organization of Women and I did that and I got the card immediately.

18:33 New Lisbon deliberative right bed of it was an interesting time to say the least in the man's world. I can imagine my guess what I thought in the seventies that was their major, you know, we don't lose past that you can get credit cards and do some of those things on your own but I guess not guess it's all a bit more recent than its. I realized much more recent. So can I ask you all

19:06 Dad work. Were you the first person in your immediate family to go to college or after the first semester and then dropped out and join the Army pretty quickly. And then Randy who was just older than they graduated from South Park cash builder in Belmont how much forest for and Randy got a scholarship to University of Arkansas to play for the Razorbacks and he went up there for three year and didn't like he had a hard time with some of the politics of the football team with Arkansas back then some of the

19:50 State representatives and Senators signed for playing in and he was beating them everyday one-on-one in the drills and that they were still playing in front of him. So he actually came back and went to Lamar in Beaumont and got a scholarship probably to play football there. But unfortunately had a car wreck dislocated his hip and lost his scholarship and and didn't play football. But Randy was 4 years older than that then I am still is he single laugh and and he

20:27 Where was I going with that how he graduated are nearly caught him? That's that's the deal. I graduated in December of 71 and Randy graduated in in August of 71. So he was 4 years ahead but I had over the years because he had lost some time from the he was in a body cast for about six months. And so I almost thought him and congratulated front of him, but he graduate in August ninth grade graduation December from Lamar University.

21:02 Was it was it hard with that with your parents and they didn't go to college right? What was there it was that ever a bit of tension or was there ever any tension between you two always said but he was very well-spoken is you is you remember if I know I always thought he was a smart guy, but you never took the Leiden and acting like a dumb farmer or like a redneck or anything. He always spoke well and was always really intelligent guy. And so when will you know, he just naturally wanted us to go on to college if we could, you know, I had an appointment to the Air Force Academy and I just kind of food around on it and they wanted me to go to prep school for a year.

21:58 And it's time that seemed like oh, no not another whole year and another year my gosh. I'll be 30 years old. I can't possibly wait that long. So at the end up going to Lamar the right there in Beaumont and you know graduate in four and a half years and went to work for the police department. Like I said, his is a police officer have any brothers about my first Beaumont first, right? And then Houston in law school, so serve serval, my fraternity brothers were working for the police department and seemed like a good idea at the time and I'm done for to the airport proud of that as a as a lad boy, and I'll pull in airplanes in and out gas in a muffin.

22:47 Didn't pay a lot of money and the police department started off at 5:50 a month and I was making about $75 a week working at the airport so much work the police department in.

23:02 And from there it went up from 5:50 a month to about 600 within about six months and I was making a lot of money more than I could spend it that I just seen life and you know as far as the income is concerned.

23:18 I mean, this is how much of a deviation there is an income levels but me working as a an accounting clerk for Blue Cross when I was a freshman in college. I was making more money than my dad was is a principal at the high school with a master's degree. Do I mean that's how far the scale of income variance was at that time and that that's just sort of the difference between what you say between a rural area mean in the city. It's a small area and then because she was in Dallas working for big happening. What did they say about how the town got the name slow comes mom?

24:18 Supposedly the story is that the settlers said that this town is going to be slow coming.

24:30 I always liked that Dad. Do you have a funny story from your time as a police officer either in Beaumont in college or in or in Houston while you're in law school in the 70s, you have to talk about the ladies.

24:57 I was also a motorcycle officer and built my first for a while and then again one of my fraternity Brothers was was a police officer riding a motorcycle in the traffic log, you know, you stop people for speeding you work taxing us and that sort of thing and so it was a big Harley 74 great big Electra Glide with a suicide shift on the gas tank and a foot clutch unlike the hand clutch as you have now and so I had only been riding the thing a couple of weeks and the clutch kind of slipped, you know, it wouldn't wouldn't always catch. So you your gift to give it a little gas and let out on the clutch with your foot and it didn't always go off immediately be kind of slip and then catch a little bit. So we we are at we were going to meet at Luby's which is a cafeteria in Beaumont for for lunch one day and so I was pulling up

25:57 At this is noon High Noon course on Wednesday or Thursday to all kinds of people around him at this at the cafeteria because it was real popular and I pulled up to the apartment place in front of in front of the cafeteria and I stopped little short. So I was going to move up a little bit and I gave it some gas and let out on the clutch and it's slept in I didn't start right away. So I'll give it more gas in in Rock'n me for it about 10 feet into the into the plate glass window at Luby's and I broke the plate glass window on my motorcycle and they had to send the internal affairs unit out to come and investigate me running my motorcycle through the through the front glass at Luby's.

26:57 If you want to hear that when I first came out that they wanted some volunteers to teach some of these guys who are going to run the breathalyzer, you know, they needed some guinea pigs and so me and another guy had decided we would volunteer to drink and then let him test as you know, throughout throughout an hour to see how the alcohol would have what effect you and so we had to half pints of bourbon and Jen and so on and so the other guy drank a half a pint of a bourbon and I drank a half a pot of GN over about an hour hour-and-a-half and then every every 10 minutes or so, then they would they would test us to see how far along you know, whether we were drunk or not. That's at that point. It was point one. Oh one tenth of 1% alcohol in your in your blood that made you legally drunk and so you drunk

27:57 Ounces of it, you know, basically and in an hour and got really drunk she she kills the other guy was about 250 lb and he can hardly walk and I feel a little better than that, but that was when the breathalyzers first came out and it was probably 1977 or 71. I think the sacrifice and volunteer. Okay. So now we're going to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart me. So let me ask you do you remember what was going through your head when you first saw me Mom?

28:47 I was glad it was over.

28:53 I thought you were the most beautiful baby I've ever seen in my whole life.

28:59 Dad, well, she she had you naturally and so she was pretty much no drugs. No drugs all natural so that you would not have any.

29:16 Residual effect leaders. How much do you regret that throughout the process Edge you were much easier than Aleve but and then I was you know, two and a half years old. I was a young mother you were you were real alert when you came came out you were born about ten after noon on June 10th and in 85 and you were real alert and I remember him beautiful color look right. I mean your little finger nails are so perfect. They put you and the little incubator or actually just a little place for the way you to begin with and you or your kind of rolling around looking at me. It was fake crying. No you didn't.

30:12 So is You by my bed probably?

30:24 So and let me ask you.

30:28 If you could do everything again with you do anything differently with raising my sister and I

30:38 Oh goodness.

30:42 Well, you know it in general you don't head.

30:49 You had a good upbringing I thinking of you stable home. It was a really good Community. You were brought up in the in the church. We had great schools and in Montgomery County some of the best in the state you were you know, you were loved and and we've looked after you and I we didn't just let you do anything that you want and then the the hunting trips we took with the Cannons and all those sort of things were really great and then our trip to the YMCA at the Estes Park when you are offered for 10 to 12 years when you all were. Thank you were for when we first went to leave at 2 and did that to you or teenagers. That was a great that bring it for you. I would say I would have like, I would probably leave want to spend more time at home when y'all were younger because

31:48 At that time

31:52 We had a lot of business going on over in Austin area and I was going back and forth over there alot to had had your own business together and you have the one in Houston and one in Georgetown Texas expanded with a lot of County Business at that time. We had about five or six counties of her clients and we opened the office in Georgetown just north of Austin cuz we had three counties in the hospital over and mom was kind of handling most of that over there and I was kind of trying to hold it down. And so

32:39 I know it's I know it must have been hard when we were little but it's okay. I knew you were in good hands was a wonderful and Mom was mom was just gone music couple days at a time. And I was there I'd cherish those times and gassy just went so quick to mazing a quick it goes a few things that I would do differently but nothing major.

33:18 Is there something about me that you've always wanted to know but never asked?

33:26 What why did you run out of Texas so bad? She got a scholarship to Evansville Evansville, Indiana and it's just too small to hold you. I think that was it. I think that's just it I think that I wanted to leave because I you know, I was at I was a quiet kid and kind of book Edition kind of artsy and and I I didn't really feel sometimes like I like I fit in very well and I and the woodlands because not not because people are mean or rude, but although they could be sometimes in school, but

34:26 The cops everywhere but I just said I guess what I just felt like I

34:33 I was looking for for my own tribe and and I and I always wanted to see the world and the in some place that had four seasons and I kind of regret that now regret that now but yeah, I know I know and I mean and now it's now I now I miss it quite a bit. So hit me up in Texas is a great place and it will tell you when your Heartstrings.

35:04 But I've always admired your adventuresome spirit that I mean is quiet is what you always were growing up. You did some of the most

35:20 Easy amazing things to I mean we were so shocked at some of the things you would do like your backpacking trips and you know roller derby and things like that. I mean they would say Lori some of the things that you've tried and which were wonderful, you know, amazing that you just jumped out there and get my confidence and you were always thought you were well-prepared and I know that you that you had your peeps around yet when you were in high school and they you know, I'm there is a strange group and most people are yeah well place with that group at the right place.

36:20 Yeah, I know and I was fine. But I guess that I just I just wanted to see what else was out there in the world. Is it is I think that I think we're at a time. It's about 3 or 4 more minutes quiroz branding.

36:52 Well, I

36:56 I have a lot of other questions, but I don't know if I can if you guys to answer them. It's 3 minutes. Okay. How about this if this was to be our last conversation, is there anything that you'd want to say to me? Oh my goodness. I can start and then say something maybe to get the ball rolling. I I would want to say that I love you both very much. And even though we don't get to see each other as much anymore now that I live in DC you guys are in Texas. I still love you more then than anyone and think about you all the time and

37:45 Think about what I'm doing this and if it will make you proud and if if I'm doing things that would

37:54 That would make you

37:57 I feel good about having me as a daughter ever have to worry about that. We're always proud of you. I know you're you're really a standout.

38:14 Individual and our friends talk about you a lot cars and Lisa think the world of you and make meals and all of them and now but you know, they're all proud of you and I we're all happy to see your success and marveling at what you've done and how like your mom said you just step out and do it all.

38:49 And we're so thankful to have that you chose and Brian to be in your life. I just think he's the perfect choice for you and gradient, Los. Good luck Stout. Yeah, I mean we're just excited and just look forward to what your next adventure is and just behind you all the way.

39:23 Thank you. Thank you for that and for everything I love you guys. You guys even though I'm a Democrat on my Lord. Are you really?

39:44 That does it.

39:46 You're out of the whale.