Address:    34A Izard Rd, Khandallah
                     Wellington, New Zealand  6004

Telephone:     64 4 479 4592

       Email:   djbrown@xtra.co.nz
 
 
 

Dan - Jonathan - Janny Brown
2001

About ten o'clock on the night the Class of 1948 graduated from CHS, Friday May 21st 1948, my Father and Brother and I drove down to the Gulf Coast to Port Aransas, Texas to my Summer job in a Fishing Resort owned by a Cousin of mine.  This job lasted until November of the same year.  In November, 1948 I returned to Coleman for a short stay, and in May of 1949 moved to Odessa, Texas and later Midland, Texas where I was working.   In August 1950, and just after the Korean War broke out, I enlisted in the Navy with one of the Students from the Class of 1949, Billie Dan Cathey.  In the next three and one half years I served three tours of duty on both coasts of Korea and from the Yalu River South during 1951, 52, 53 and 54.  In February of 1954 the destroyer that I was attached to moved to the French-IndoChina (later Vietnam) area and remained there until the French had been defeated by the French-IndoChina local forces in March of 1954.   In June of 1954 the group that we were attached to returned to the States.  I was discharged July 7, 1954, left San Diego and went back to Coleman.  In later years, 1964, I joined a Naval Reserve Unit in Amarillo, Texas and remained in the Reserves, both Active and Inactive for a period of ten years.  This gave me a total of fourteen years in the Navy, both active and inactive.  I enrolled in Texas Tech at Lubbock, Texas in September of 1954 and got married the first time in June of 1957.  My first Son was born in March of 1958.  The first job out of school was with a Petroleum Reservoir Engineering Company, Core Laboratories, Inc. which commenced in July of 1958. Due to some late courses being taken the graduation ceremonies from Texas Tech with a degree in Geology had to be delayed until August of 1959.  The second Son was born in 1960 and the third Son in 1963.  I resigned from Core Laboratories in December of 1968 when an oil company in Dallas, Texas, Triton Oil & Gas Corp., offered me a job in New Zealand. The job in New Zealand working in various areas around the country exploring for oil and or gas lasted until December of 1972 when I returned to Dallas. My not being home as much as I should have been resulted in a divorce in 1973.  I then continued to work for Triton Oil & Gas Corp. in the States and in Canada.  In March 1975 the company seconded me to an offshore project in Thailand where I remained until July of that same year.  I met my present Wife, a Chinese girl, and in Singapore in March of that year.  I resigned from Triton on my return to Dallas.  I later flew back to Singapore and to a job with an Offshore Drilling Company from Houston, Atwood Oceanics International Limited.  The girl from Singapore, Janny Wee, and I got married in April of 1976, then spent some time in Burma with this company, and later that year were transferred to Bombay, India.  We remained in Bombay working for the Indian Government in an offshore project in the Bombay High until sometime mid 1977.  We were then again transferred to Port Moresby, New Guinea where we were involved with a project for Exxon.  Near the end of 1977 we moved back to Singapore.  I resigned from Atwood at that time and commenced employment with a Canadian Company, Bawden Drilling International  Ltd, and in charge of their Singapore office  handling personnel, purchasing and rig movements in Indonesia. Our one Son, and my fourth one, was born in March 1979.  We remained in Singapore and working in various land areas in Indonesia until September of 1984, this also being combined with several sales visits to Malaysia, the Philippines and Pakistan.  In 1984 operations were slowing down so we left this company and went back to work for Triton again and as Exploration Manager of New Zealand Petroleum Company Limited in Wellington, New Zealand.  We remained in New Zealand until January 1993 when we were transferred to Jakarta, Indonesia in charge of Triton's drilling and production operations in the southern part of the Island of Sumatra. We remained with Triton until July of 1996 when the project was sold to an Indonesian Company, Apex Oil & Gas Ltd.  In order to remain in Indonesia where our Son was attending the Jakarta International School I resigned from Triton and became employed with this Indonesian Company as Vice President/General Manager. The company later became involved in additional operations in Kalimantan (Borneo) and Irian Jaya.  The crisis in Indonesia was beginning to develop by that time and because of hardships that the company was beginning to suffer due to these economic problems the operations were put on hold and my Wife and I had to depart Indonesia.  We left on the 26th of December 1997 and prior to the violent turmoil that occurred later.  We returned to New Zealand, where we have our home, on January 2, 1998.  June 1998 would have been the end of my 40th year in the Oil Industry.  I suppose you could term this my forced retirement.  Our Son had entered school in Jakarta and completed a part of his elementary education and all of his High School years at the Jakarta International School (JIS).  He graduated in June of 1997, and a few days later with my Wife and I went on vacation to Atlanta, Georgia.  We left him there where he worked for a computer company and  attended Georgia Tech. He returned to New Zealand in June of 1998.  My three older Sons are married.  I have seven grandchildren, five boys and two girls.  My fourth Son is in Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.  My present Wife and I have been married almost 23 years, have lived and worked in five countries, some of them on two occasions, and now make our home in Wellington, New Zealand.  This should bring you up to date on the life of this one Student of the Class of 1948.   My Best Regards to each of you."   (2001.)

"At first glance you would wonder about the connection between Morton’s Salt and Murphy’s Law.  The foremost Law of Murphy states; “If something can go wrong, it will;” and the caption on a container of Morton’s Salt reads; “When it rains, it pours.”  The blue cylindrical containers of Morton Salt portrayed a young girl with an umbrella over her head and with the caption as noted.   Murphy’s Law became quite apparent during my forty year’s tenure in the oil industry and with everyone usually blaming all our problems on Murphy.  The World today would appear to be suffering from these same two situations and with these many unfortunate incidents raining down on so many innocent people.

Quite sadly we seem to be paralleling this same footpath with the disturbing sequence of events in Bali, Iraq, Kenya, the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy, the continuing problems in Israel and Palestine and the events in Liberia; and just recently the continuation of bomb attacks on the Red Cross and others in Iraq.  If the population of the World could just for once put all their ideological and religious differences to one side we would have a good base for a new beginning.  If each one of us would then put as much effort into rebuilding this piece of land that we were given as is done in trying to change each other; then, it is felt that we can make this World of ours a better place in which to live.  Perhaps we would each be able to adjust to everyone’s differing ways of life.

Last year’s Christmas Letter concluded with comments about our Christmas picture and where it was taken.  Since we haven’t yet taken a picture for this year I cannot really comment at this time.  This letter was started earlier in the year and now will hopefully get completed.  The picture was finally taken and on the 18th of October, the night of Jonathan and Lily’s Wellington Wedding party.  We Hope that you do like the balloons in the picture, as we had to move all the furniture out of the living room in order to get the balloons in. 

Jonathan and Lily have been living in Jakarta where he works for a New Zealand computer software development firm taking care of the problems with one of the phone systems in Jakarta.  At the start of their vacation they flew to Taipei, Lily’s home, and on October 10th were married.  He and Lily then flew on to Wellington on the 12th and helped Janny and I (Janny has been working on this for months) get ready for a celebration on the 18th.  The party went well and with about 60 friends and also Lily’s parents, who flew in from Taipei, attending.  Needless to say; Yours Truly was truly in bed by the stroke of midnight.

The Christmas picture for this year was taken in our living room after all the furniture had been removed and balloons hung from the ceiling.  We had a furniture company in to remove the furniture and then a few days later came back and put it all back in again.  It took quite a bit longer to get the entire room back into shape again.

Janny and I are still trying to finish repairs to our home.  We purchased this place about five and a half years ago and have it almost repaired.  It’s amazing how many little things can go wrong or that seem to come up at the most inconvenient time.  Half the outside of the house was painted last year and this coming January we plan to finish the remainder.  In the meantime I have been removing hardware from the inside of the windows frames and cleaning the paint off and with the intention of having all the frames painted.  We have almost 250 individual glass panes in the house so it has taken a lot of time cleaning and sanding the wood.  In Kiwi terms the house is known as a Colonial house, thus all the windows, etc.  It is felt that some mad man must have built it as it does take a lot of time washing windows.

New Zealand even received a lot of Mark Twain weather this year; and no one did anything about it.  It rained and rained and rained; the Main Road North, Highway 1, and just North of Wellington in the middle of a small town with the name of Paraparaumu became the victim of a California style land slip and the main rail, the highway, one of the motels and some homes became covered with mud, rock, silt and lots of water.  It took a few hours to clear some of the mess so that the trains could run and traffic could continue to go North or South.

For each of my Korean and French-IndoChina wartime buddies and for all our family and friends and for anyone else who did not receive an individual letter this year due to our being so doggone late; this is your letter, however if you do write we promise to sit down and answer your letter for this year.  In ending, this is to wish each of you a Very Merry Christmas 2003 and a Happy New Year 2004."     (2003.)

"My apologies for making this a Community Letter, however it is hoped that you do not mind too much.  This is a bit late in saying,  'Thanks for such a Wonderful Homecoming," however, I just arrived back in New Zealand on the 25th of October and am now over Jet Lag and have been able to catch up a bit around the house.  This email is to say thanks to Ann Hunter and all the ones that had a hand in getting the reunion together; to Charles and Helen Stafford for taking in this homeless Nomad and serving up such great dinners and company; to Jackie Mills for the invite to her home for the Class of '49 Bar-B-Que; to Jean Hughes for saving the picture of me at 14 years of age and for hanging on to it for so many years; to Verna and Fred for mailing this picture on to me after I mistakenly left it at Jackie's home; to Bill Stephenson and Ted Crum for the email pictures and to Grace to note that I am sure you will enjoy your visit to New Zealand whenever that day arrives; to Charles and Helen for the pictures that you mailed to me and especially to Helen for taking me out to the cemetery to see my parents' and others graves; to David Watson for making that special effort to be there as it was great to see you;  for Harold Claiburne with whom I have so many childhood memories of you and I and Marcus Durham and Alton Kidd out in the woods somewhere; to Imogene and Era Lee Ingram for being there and for giving me the opportunity to discuss the oil patch with Sammy; to my Sister Dale and her Husband Kenneth for being there; to Dollie Sparkman whom I was most happy to visit with once again; to Mary Sue and Mayo for being able to come to the reunion; to JoAnn King and her Brother Billie Dan Cathey for also making the effort to attend the reunion; to John Walthall and the gang at the Drug Store and also to Ted Hatcher, Charles Williams, Sue Smedley, Marvin Dozier, Doyle Meadors, Charlene Reis, Herma Jean Johnson; to Ralph Terry for all the effort that you always put into your pictures and making sure that everything works and to all the others whom I cannot remember at this time; thanks for the pleasure of seeing and visiting with each of you again.  It's always a long way back to Coleman, however in my my memories the place and all the kids that I knew will always be remembered and missed.  After the reunion I drove down to College Station to visit one Son and his family; then on a plane to Dallas and on to Amarillo to visit a second Son and family in Sunray; then to Pampa to visit a third Son and family and with a week at each place.  After that it was back to Dallas and on to Los Angeles where I spent  one week with my Sister Doris and some of her family; then up to Modesto, California on the bus to attend a Korean and French-IndoChina Vets reunion when at such time I was able to visit with some guys that I hadn't seen since 1951-54 in Korea.  After the reunion I caught a bus back to San Francisco and then United Airlines to Los Angeles and at eleven thirty on a Saturday night the 23rd I boarded Air New Zealand for a twelve hour flight back into Auckland and then a one hour flight down to Auckland.  I was good to be home.  Thanks again for a wonderful time.  Warmest Regards."  (November 2004.)

To all our friends, families, loved ones and school teachers throughout the years, and in particular to one Structural Geology Professor late of Texas Technological University (by the name of “Tex” who was very instrumental in speeding my entry into the geological section of the Oil Industry so many years ago); this Christmas letter is for each of you.  It is always good at this time of the year to be able to celebrate the Christmas event and also to be able to write to each of you and to learn how your year has been. 

As Christmas of 2004 was rapidly arriving another event was in the process of happening at Wellington General Hospital and in the maternity ward.  Michael Noah Brown, the eighth grandchild for me and the first one for Janny was on December 8, 2004 making his arrival into the World.  Jonathan and Lily had just purchased their first home at 67 Thatcher Crescent, Crofton Downs, Wellington a couple days earlier and were practically sleeping on the floor when Michael decided that it was time for his arrival and was possibly wishing that someone would hurry up and make that hasty drive to the hospital.  It wasn’t too much later that he made his arrival into this World of ours.  As is often the case in naming your children his middle name was after his Father, his Great-Great Grandfather and his Great-Great-Great Grandfather; Jonathan Noah Brown, Hale Noah Griffin and James Noah Griffin, this latter one having fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War in the United States and during the mid 1800’s. 

The year has been full of so many events; the Super Bowl, basketball season starting, the advent of the baseball season and Janny and Dan planning a vacation trip to Janny’s home town of Singapore.  Three weeks were spent in Singapore visiting Janny’s parents, seeing friends, eating out at every opportunity and with trips to the many shopping centres.  We also managed five days in Jakarta, Indonesia visiting some friends and later a weekend in Malacca, Malaysia which is an old early Portuguese settlement. 

Lily and Michael will be off to Hong Kong and then to Taipei, Taiwan in January of 2006 to visit friends and will have a couple months with Lily’s parents in Taipei.  Her Father has only seen Michael via pictures so this will be an opportunity for the two of them to get to know each other. 

Dan continues to be involved with his Ham Radio friends, working with his old WWII New Zealand Army radios, re-rigging his outside antenna which has suffered a bit from the wind that we always seem to get in Windy Wellington, family history, trying to keep the yard up and a dozen and one other avenues of interest, most of which always seem to take up a lot of time.  Janny is back into dinner parties for friends, tennis, badminton and her walking group; tennis having been down due to Winter, but now back in full swing. 

Jonathan changed companies just recently and mid September commenced employment with Alcatel, a French telecommunications company and as a Test Engineer.  Telecom, one of the telephone companies in New Zealand, is revamping their phone system which is due to take approximately six to seven years to complete.  These long projects always offer a lot of challenge and interest.  Who knows; we may be speaking to someone in outer space yet. 

Janny had bought a four wheel walker for Michael some time back; one in which he likes to zoom around the house opening drawers, pulling laundry out of the basket and all sorts of mad things.  Lily, in trying to get him to crawl, took the walker away and just sat him on the floor.  Michael responded with just lying down, rolling over and over to get to where he wanted to go and seemingly faster than in the walker.  Perhaps one day he will learn that it is simpler just to walk to wherever. 

Janny and Dan bought their present home almost eight years ago and have since been restoring it.  The project this year has been to redo three of the bathrooms which now are almost there.  Next year it will be the main bathroom plus a repaint of our bedroom and later the last two of the guest bedrooms.  By then it will be back to square one and time to start all over again.  Maintenance never seems to end. 

It is almost the end of this two page allocation which has been granted for this year so we will close and wish each of you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2006.  It is hoped for each of us that we do remember the thought behind Christmas and that with our endeavours we will be able to make 2006 a better year for all.  Perhaps one day this old World of ours and all its inhabitants will learn how to better live with each other.