On those rare days when things were just not jelling and he needed a break to clear his mind, Bud Brown would take a ride out to Sunland to see his friends at Tierra del Sol.
They never failed to lift his spirits with their laughter as he walked around the campus greeting them by name, and asking how their parents were doing.
After all they had been through as developmentally challenged kids who were now adults in a society where doors had been shut to them for so long, it amazed him they still attacked life with so much joy.
Tierra gave them respect and an opportunity to explore and create what was in their minds through its many arts and craft classes. It provided them the job training they would need if one day they ever had the opportunity to step out into the workforce.
But, who would hire them? Who would open the door for them to walk through and show all those people who pitied and ignored them what they could do if only given the chance?
Bud Brown opened those doors.
He was still working for GTE as a branch manager and community relations director the first time he visited Tierra in the early 1980s. A few of the staff members were working on an old service vehicle that had broken down. Without it, they couldn’t transport people to and from the campus.
Bud put that in the back of his mind as he continued on his group tour. This was a special place with special people he quickly realized. What can I do to help?
That’s the way Bud thought when he saw a problem. What could he do to help?
He had the means and the connections, now he had the opportunity. The next day, a GTE truck that was being taken out of commission arrived at Tierra del Sol — tuned up and ready to go.
At first, he didn’t know why his new friends at Tierra would ever want to leave and get a job. They had everything right here — their friends and the arts and crafts classes they loved. Why leave to work eight hours a day for minimum wage?
It wasn’t the money for them, he found. It was the chance for the first time in lives that had been so protected and controlled, to finally color outside the lines.
Bud began knocking on doors and calling in favors from community and business leaders he served with on non-profit and charitable foundation boards.
Give my friends a chance, he said. That’s all he was asking. Just a chance to let them show you they can do the job.
Slowly, the doors began to open. One of the first to do so was the Daily News. We hired half a dozen of Bud’s friends from Tierra to sort papers in the library and help with simple tasks around the offices.
It didn’t take long before they became our friends, too.
On those days that things just weren’t jelling at the paper, they lifted our spirits, too. Bud was right. Give them a chance and they’ll show you.
“Bud was out there in the community singing the praises of people with disabilities, and treating them as equals before anyone,” said Steve Miller, CEO of Tierra del Sol.
“He loved to say that Tierra was a little piece of heaven on earth.”
For all he did, Bud Brown was a little piece of heaven on earth. I never saw him without a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. He was a lucky man and he knew it. The 5-year-old girl he met in Sunday school when he was 7 would become his wife for 66 years.
Althea Brown was on his arm wherever they went, and the smile on Bud’s face said it all. You can’t fake love.
“Two peas in a pod, that’s what we were,” Althea said this week, still crying over the death of the only man she ever loved. In all those years together, she had only one rival for his affections.
His friends at Tierra del Sol.
“Of all the charitable things Bud did in his life, he loved them the most,” she said.
Now he’s gone at 89, and there’s a big hole in the hearts of his friends at Tierra, and all the people who knew this remarkable man. He never sought the spotlight, never wanted the attention. He gladly gave the credit to others.
But, we all knew the truth. Bud Brown was the man behind the curtain in the San Fernando Valley for more than four decades — pulling all the right levers to let people with disabilities finally walk through doors that had been shut to them way too long.
Information about Tierra del Sol, www.tierradelsol.org
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.