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Biography for Cliffe Browning Born and raised in Brownwood. Started to School in private Church School (just so I could be with the wonderful class of 1957) . From there 2nd grade until 6th went to East Ward then to Coggin in the 7th. Our house was right on the breaking point of East, South and Coggin districts. Then on to Jr. High and dear old Brownwood High School. After graduating HS, I went to Howard Payne that summer and the next year. I went to school in Lubbock for a year and went into the Navy. After boot camp I spent 9 months on board ship. I didn't stay in long due to picking up amoebic dysentery at San Diego and was mustered out into the reserves. Returned to Lubbock for another half a year. Health getting worse I returned to Brownwood and attempted another shot at Howard Payne. Dropped out half way through the semester; the physical problems and the medicine they were giving me were not conducive to concentration. Re-met Regina (not knowing it at the time, we had met at her 7th birthday party at Coggin Park many years before). We became friends. In July, I moved to Brady and got a job as DJ at KNEL. Regina and another girl from the college would drive down to answer the phone on my shift. I worked there for about six months when my colon ruptured - stayed awake all that night sitting in a chair , went to work the next morning (Sunday morning shift) got off work at 2 pm and drove to my parents home, they were not home. I sat in a chair and passed out., they returned home around 6:30 saw me and rushed me to the hospital. Peritonitis is not a happy situation to have and during that period of medical history usually fatal. After several surgeries I was on the way to recovery. Just before the last surgery, in Dallas, Regina came to visit. It was the first day they would let me out of the hospital for a couple of hours. We took a walk to down town Dallas. For some reason, unknown to me, she would stop at every jewelry store to admire the rings. I would glance say "that's nice" and drag her on down the walk. We stopped for a soda and she kept talking about the "pretty rings". I took the paper off my straw and curled it into a ring and stuck it on her finger. She kept it on like it was real. Then came surgery. I was a long time recovering and my family rented an apartment so they could be close when I got out and I would have a place close for the daily visits to the surgery center. While I was recovering in the hospital, a couple of days before moving into the apartment, I wrote Regina a letter and proposed. She thought it was the pain killers the hospital was giving me so on the first day I was out of the hospital and into the apartment, she, and a couple of friends, drove to Dallas. She was sick with bronchial pneumonia. While she was there I proposed again so she would know I meant it. I recovered, from the surgery, went back to Brownwood. Three months later Regina and I eloped. The following spring we moved to Ft Worth. Working two jobs and going to College again I soon wore out. A school year later we came back to Brownwood where I started apprenticeship at a local restaurant working up to souse chef before my dad had a heart attack. I left there to take over the family business. The business was sold after a time and I went to work for Higginbotham Bros and back in college. Regina and I started taking classes in Sign Language for the deaf from a student at the College. Shortly afterward our son was born. Regina went back to school and graduated from Howard Payne with him in her arms (6 months old). Two years later our daughter was born in October. In March the next year I received a call from the Ft Worth Postal Service to come in for an interview. I had already had three of these interviews from others (2 from Brownwood) but we decided it would be a good trip. I was hired to go to work in two weeks. Regina our nearly three year old son and our 6 month old daughter moved to Ft. Worth. It was there I started my Postal career, carrying mail. By now we were both proficient in sign language, we became involved in the deaf community, interpreting at church, doctors and lawyers. I was involved in establishing the Texas state certification procedures for Interpreters for the Deaf. In the Post Office I worked up to Supervisor then on the General Supervisor. Learned how to use computers and back to school again - Graduated!! Yea! - Psychology and Computer science - (they are related more than you think). Became Automation Coordinator at Ft Worth and was first introduced to the Mail Condition Reporting System (MCRS), a rather awkward and not friendly reporting system. At the time I never realized how this MCRS would effect my career. I applied for and got a job with Postal Service National Headquarters working on the Distribution Information System (DIS) project; I began commuting from Ft Worth to Kansas City. I Would leave Ft Worth Monday morning (unless I drove, then left Sunday) and returned home Friday night (or Saturday if driving). After developing the system our team of six split up two by two and went to all the major Processing Plants, across the nation, installing the system (of course my boss got to go to Hawaii). Now my life was; Kansas City Monday, work on project, catch a flight to another City Wednesday, set up and get it running. Leave there to another City Thursday morning, same routine, leave there and either come home or back to Kansas City to report any problems with the installation (which was more frequent than not) and then back to Ft Worth Friday evening or Saturday morning. One such trip we got word the project team was being dismantled and the project turned over to a maintenance group. I bid on a Southern Region job in Memphis. I was in St. Louis putting in the second stage of the DIS system which was a two - three day job (joy only one extra city that week) and received word I had an interview in Memphis Thursday morning at 9:00 am. Regina had gone with me, she stayed in St Louis while I flew to Memphis, interviewed for the position, flew back to St Louis, completed installation and we drove home Friday morning. When I got to the office Monday morning and walked in the door all the team yelled "congratulations". I had gotten the position and did not know it yet. They all thought I knew. I didn't get official word until the next Friday... I was to report to Memphis in four weeks from that Monday. That gave us three weeks to find a place to live and start "house" hunting in which we had 3 months to find a permanent home. We had two weeks off to look. We moved and I entered into culture shock - upper management on a Regional level. It was here I really began to learn computers inside and out, programming schools, one after another,- I was one of the first people to use windows (before it was marketed) believe me it has changed! All of the Mail Condition Reporting System (MCRS) responsibilities were given to me to see if I could get it to work faster. Reports were entered at each office every morning by 9 am and I was to have a working report that my Manager could read and understand (with my comments) by 11:00am. It was a manual extraction and entering into the report hindered by late reporting offices. Lotus was crude but workable as was Word Perfect. I was able to get the raw data broken down into a data base that would import into Lotus and cut the time from 11:00 to 10:00. With that I inherited the project permanently. Still was the problem of getting the offices to report on time. I had no information on the data structure, so I called San Mateo where the Main Frame Computer was located - talking to a Customer Service Rep (he said he was also a programmer) and we started working on what I needed . Another Systems Analyst in Western Region was also interested in accessing this information so we started working together developing a system to do what we wanted. Shortly Headquarters found out was going on and pulled our CS rep out, he had overextended his authority, he was not an official programmer. All four Regions by now had seen what we were doing and liked the concept. Region Postmaster Generals shot off letters to Headquarters. Two days later not only was our man put back on the job but a National team was formed. We had gotten the reporting down to 9:45 and that was only because too many offices were late getting their reports in. We had the data base down and were working together to design an input reporting system. Then the input time was changed to 8:00 and reports to the top office by 9:00. It worked! Then enter "Carvin" Marvin (Marvin Runion) Postmaster General. The Four Regional Offices were dissolved and 9 Area Offices formed, (Later to become 11). No one knew if they still had a job or not. Our Region was split into two Areas. My manager went to Dallas and the other Regional Manager went to Atlanta. Two weeks later one of my coworkers, in our department, went to Dallas and another went to Atlanta. I figured I was sunk. Six weeks had gone by and the Area offices were basicly being run remotely. Three weeks I worried as did all the others at the office. No one knew what was going to happen. For the next three weeks at churh the preacher's sermon was directed at me and after the third one I accepted that what ever happened God was in charge. Regina was still stressed and had an attack of angina (she had had a heart attack a couple of years before - see link Wake Up ). She was in the hospital for testing for two days, she was fine. Then the following Thursday just as I was ready to leave work my phone rang. My manager, now in Dallas, said "I need you here Monday morning". I tried to call Regina - she was not home, it was her day to work at the church closet. I rode the bus home so it was late when I got home - she still was not there. Of all days she had decided to do the grocery shopping. She walked in the door and I ask her, "You ready to go to Dallas?" "Sure", She replied, "When?". I looked at her and slowly said " We have to be there Monday." "Oh good, that gives us over a week to get ready.", she said with a smile . "Ah..er... well not exactly ... we have to be there this Monday." The smile quickly faded as did the color in her face. Friday I packed my office and shipped my computer and files. Regina packed enough for us to live on for a couple of weeks. We lived in corporate apartments for nine months then bought a house in De Soto. Of the nine people in my Manager's department only two of us went to Dallas and two went to Atlanta. Two retired and two went to processing offices, what happened to the other one I don't know. The next years were spent at the Southwest Area Office in Dallas as Operations Systems Analyst. Still working with improving the MCRS, attendance control, and operations trouble shooting and developing a myriad of reports. I developed several other programs two of which were accepted on a national level and two web based applications.. My main responsibility during this period was seeing that all the offices were processing the mail in a timely way - you know, getting it to where it was going on time. Regina had another heart attack during this time (that's another story see link Life Story). I finished Graduate School and started work on my doctorate ( as of this writing 11/26/2004 I lack one course and a dissertation). Then health situations started working on both of us. I nearly bled to death on the way to a Postal meeting in Atlanta, made it as far as New Orleans. two transfusions there and we started home. Got to Tyler, wham!, down again - three pints more blood there and was ambulanced to Lancaster where they did surgery to close a small artery that had ruptured. That was in October. In November I had the strong urge to retire, I had not planned that for a couple of more years but this was really grating on me. Talked it over with Regina , she agreed so we turned in our papers for the end of the year 1999. December I nearly lost Regina from a ruptured stomach. (See link Still in Control). Her first day in a private room was Jan 1, 2000; I could stay with her day and night. She still has problems from that original surgery but is doing good. Her last surgery (the 8th.) was in July 2004 for a hernia stemming from the original surgery. I went to work that summer at a party store selling party supplies and blowing up balloons. Then in April 2003 Regina and I became managers and care takers for a residential home. We stayed there for little over one year but due to circumstances we decided it was time to retire again. We moved to Cedar Hill and that is when Regina went into the hospital for two months ( hernia - that's another story and I haven't gotten it written yet). They removed 6 layers of vortex mesh and did a new procedure that should have corrected her from having another one. Who knows what next - I know God is not finished with us yet - I still have a degree to finish and have already had possibilities to work part time in two mental rehab hospitals (one dealing with my specialty). They had asked me to come to work there nearly two years ago but that unit closed and now in September, has reopened . One thing I need to say is that everything that has happened to me and everything that I have accomplished could have never happened without God and my darling wife Regina. She supported and urged me and God did the work - I was just along for the ride. Sorry when I get to writing I don't know when to stop. I truly hope to see every one at the reunion in 2007 - and if there are more gatherings before then I will be looking forward to them also.
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