Tonny K. Brown
I grew up Midland Texas, which is also the city of my birth. I am the youngest of four boys that were born to Curtis and Ruby Brown. After me, in 1969,
My Mother gave birth to her last child and only daughter, Katrina; and then she died of cancer 6 years later. My memories of her are fragmented and incomplete. When I think of her these days, it is always with sadness. I don’t know why. And I won’t dwell too long upon it in this writing.
My Father raised us alone through the 70’s and 80’s and if I said, it was hard, I would be telling either half a lie or half of the truth. So I’ll say it was more than hard, Curtis never seemed to catch the breaks that life sometimes tosses those it sees in need. Those days too, are remembered with a bit of sadness.
My brothers, our sister and I only had one another to depend on. We only trusted each other. That is why we are so close today, all these years later. That’s why we did Treasure Hunters together, That why we are doing this together. My Father used to tell us to, “Love hard whilst you can cause most people never get the chance, you’ll know when you do cause you won’t never stop, no matter what…that’s what loving hard is”. I have always loved my brothers and my sister hard. I am married now and have been for 15 years. I love my wife hard too, but she don’t seem to think so…she only sees the way I am with my brothers and my sister. In the last 5 years or so, I have lost in death many, many people that I cared about.
My grandmother, several aunts, my Ain’ daut (she was my grandfathers sister) and others. Now my Father is 80 years old come Sept 6, 2008. He’s married again to a very nice woman and for that, I am glad. He seems to be relatively healthy for 80 but I still worry a lot. I wanted to do something for him that he could see in his lifetime. I wanted to make him proud of me and I wanted him to know that I heard him all those years ago…I loved hard. So I write and I tell the stories of Jack and Sidney and I hope that the people that read these will find their own stories in among them.
I may never know , but I hope I have made some difference for the better in some of their lives if only for a moment. But then again that is the way that life is lived; from one moment to the next.
“A heart assured of its purpose will have the honor to admit when it is wrong, the courage to examine the reason for its faith and the strength to recover from the pain of any wrong it has done. And it will possess the greatest power known to both God and man; the power to forgive “AND” most certainly forget. A heart such as this shall always have the voice to answer life.”
“The one thing that you can be sure about of what mankind has learned over the centuries...is that he has paid attention to none of it.”
“Let us not confuse love with passion. Love, True Love is eternal. Passion just rides as far as the thought of love will take him. Never blame love for passions faults.”
“Ye Noble men of Honor know this...the voice of love never dies, Hope be its companion that rides upon the rays of the SUN by day and the MOON by night and it says "hold on to me as we wait for him to arrive...that be LOVE.”
“The greatest thing you will ever give to the world is your committment to leave what you find in better condition than the way you found it. Leave a single light in a place where there was once darkness so those coming behind you may see further and begin where you left.”
“One life, One love, One breath, One people, One chance to make a difference. If we are not one in LIFE we surely will be one on DEATH.”
“I say be bold, come out of your threshold and ride the wind wherever it goes, we shall hold in one hand peace and in the other reignes, damn those who say the wind cannot be tamed, today it be a steed of grace that takes us to every place we have yet to see, perhaps it may even bring you to me...RIDE!”
“Once I made weapons carved from stone, I tied the weight to a wooden handle, a club to break the bones of my enemy.Then I became wiser...and sharpened the stone to a point and then fastened it to a stick; my arrow. I bent wood and hitched string to it; my bow. I kill my enemy with skillThen I became wiser...and made weapons forged from steel and took care to sharpen the blade of my sword. I kill my enemy with a stroke.Then I became wiser...and made the rifle that would, by exploding gunpowder, shoot balls of lead faster than the eye could see. I kill my enemy with but the pull of a trigger.Then I became wiser...and I built flying machine that could transport bombs to drop over the homes of my enemy. I kill my enemy from the sky.Then I became wiser...and created the drone, now I can guide a plane by remote control from one country and kill my enemy in another. I am a proficient killerThen I became wiser... and I found a way to split the atom and found the power of God hidden within. I kill the ground, scorch the sky, pollute the wind and kill my enemy with the push of a button.Then I became wiser...And I found that there is nothing more foolish than a "Wise Man of War”
“A Dog can never brag about catching a cat that waited for him.”
“A friend is someone that asks, 'how are you,' and really wants to hear the truth.”
“I pray, before I die, that I receive the power to believe in fairytales again, Oh' how I would love to laugh and know that God laughed with me.”
“Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to believe in yourself, the reason it is so hard is because it is worth it.”
“Love...Will never preach a thing it does not believe, and it will never believe a thing it is not willing to preach.”
“A fool shouts charge when he should retreat, A coward shouts retreat when he should charge and a wise man knows the difference. I charge.”
“A hero is not know by the number of battles he has won, but rather by the kind of battles he chooses to fight.”
“It is through another’s foolishness that we are able to spin tails of lies without retribution...what do you see and what do you want to see, both are before you now, this day.”
“We all say that we are in search of LOVE, first tell me where it cannot be found?”
“I do not know why there are more people in the world that dare to be different than there are people who dare to make a difference.”
“To be treated with indifference is the greatest tragedy a Human Soul can suffer.”