Ezra (Bud) Brown is currently Professor of Mathematics at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was raised in New Orleans. Sadly, that wonderful place (America's Most Interesting City, The City That Care Forgot, The Crescent City) will never be the same after Hurricane Katrina's unique Day of Horror. At some indeterminate early age (his mother estimates it as 2.5) he was taught to read by his blind grandmother, who also gave him his nickname. More about all of that later.
He spent his K--12 years at Isidore Newman School, a very preppy school in New Orleans. He then went to Rice University, where he spent four years learning to play the piano (by ear), to sing (choral music), to play Frisbee Golf (he held the course record) and to be more-or-less socialized. Oh, yes, he majored in math and somehow escaped with a B.A. in 1965. Along the way, he worked two glorious summers in the Pacific Northwest, from which some of his fondest memories date.
Somehow, his undistinguished career at a distinguished university was enough to get him into a crackerjack graduate program in mathematics at LSU in Baton Rouge. He obtained a M.S. in 1967 (after failing his Ph.D. preliminary exams once, but not twice) and a Ph.D. in 1969. His doctoral work and most of his fifty or so publications are in Number Theory, a field once widely praised for its great beauty and its great uselessness. The beauty is still there, and it now has many useful applications, especially in the field of communications. In fact, these applications have been useful enough to enable Bud to find interesting things to do during many recent summers--at the Center for Communications Research in Princeton in 1989 and 1990 and the Defense Department every summer since 1993, where he works on fascinating problems that he cannot tell you about. Useful is as useful does.
The most significant event in his graduate career, however, happened on December 10, 1965. Having received a "Dear Bud" phone call from a young lady just that afternoon, he was in no mood for frivolities. His friends downstairs persuaded him to go with them to a party given by Mary Ella, Jo, and Anna, who were graduate students in English. When he was introduced to Jo, it occurred to him that This Was The One. And she was. They are now in the 41st year of their trial marriage, which began June 1, 1967. It'll probably last.
In 1969, shortly after their son Benjamin was born, the three of them moved to Blacksburg, where he (Bud, not Ben) had been hired as an Assistant Professor. Their son Daniel was born in 1972, and they have been at Virginia Tech ever since, except for sabbatical years at the University of Munich (1978-79) and the Defense Department (1991-92). In 1970, Bud joined the Virginia Tech Jazz Ensemble because their piano player had just quit, and was with that group for ten years, occasionally playing vibes, too. He even directed the group for a year.
Along the way, there were a number of minor pets and three major ones: Trotwood (1970-80), a large, friendly, Frisbee-catching mutt; Peggotty (1981-94), a very friendly but slightly neurotic Golden Retriever; and Minerva (1990-2006), a Siamese cat with some dog-like behavior patterns--but she was raised by a very motherly Peggotty, so what do you expect? They have lightened our lives and brightened our days, each in their own unique fashion.
During the 1970's Bud and Jo went the organic gardening and alternative school route. The Munich sabbatical was an outstanding experience in many ways for the four of them, and they were able to travel to an interesting mix of countries. The boys learned German with astonishing rapidity, and they all learned to ski--the boys and their mother are quite good, and as for the mathematician, well, no broken bones.
During the 1980's the boys and their dad went through Scouting together, with much camping, hiking and backpacking (the Appalachian Trail is a 20-minute drive from Blacksburg). Ben went to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico in 1984, and Dan and Bud both went in 1987. After returning from Philmont, Ben spent four years at Mercersburg, a boarding school in Pennsylvania, and Jo began her 20-year career as a librarian at the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library. She obtained her Masters in Library Science at Catholic University in 1992, nursed the Blacksburg Library building project from its pre-referendum days to its current status as a beautiful completed building, did the same for the Meadowbrook Public Library project from its days as an idea to its current status as a building in Shawsville almost ready for opening, and retired on August 1, 2005. No grass will grow under her feet: she is also a Master Gardener, and gardening is one of her great joys in life. In 1999, she and her "diggy-boy" (guess who?) put in a water garden, which has been a wonderful addition to our yard. Her current projects include building trough gardens and bottle trees and making beaded necklaces. Our yard is full of furniture, and our house is full of both plants and folk art, the latter including a whole lot of mermaids and images of Frida Kahlo.
Ben graduated from James Madison University in 1992, is now in the San Francisco Bay Area (specifically, Alameda) working in the computer world, but you never know: he may end up being a writer. Daniel graduated from the University of Virginia in 1994 and from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine in Portland OR in 2001. He is now an N.D. (Naturopathic Doctor), and is now back in school at Oregon Health Sciences University, studying to be a Physician's Assistant. While at NCNM he met fellow student and fellow UVa grad Samantha LeVine, and the two of them have conspired to increase our family: Phoebe Rose Brown LeVine was born standin' up and talkin' back in the wee hours of July 30, 2000. She's a gem. And Rose is a family name, being the name of Bud's maternal grandmother's favorite sister and the name of Bud's maternal grandfather's mother. So she's named after one of her great-great-great aunts and one of her great-great-great-grandmothers!
Ben and Dan have a true generosity of the human spirit, and it looks as if Phoebe Rose is coming along in that direction. Their parents/grandparents are very proud of them, as are their grandparents/great grandparents: Bud's mom and dad, who are currently in Blacksburg, having escaped the ravages of Hurricane Katrina --- doing quite nicely, in fact --- and Jo's mom, who taught home economics at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and died in 1992.
Bud returned to music in 1989, joining the Blacksburg Master Chorale and the chorus of the Roanoke Opera. With the Chorale, he has performed such works as the Brahms, Mozart and Faure Requiems, Britten's War Requiem, the Bach B Minor Mass, and Arthur Honegger's King David -- in which he chanted the part of the Ghost of Samuel. (Maybe one day he can sing the part of somebody who's alive!) He's been in six operas so far, and had a small role in Madama Butterfly (the Imperial Commissioner, who performs the marriage ceremony for Lt. Pinkerton and Butterfly), which afforded him a two-page solo, a line in the program and a solo bow. His earliest music experiences were being at rehearsals for Gilbert and Sullivan operettas staged by a group of Tulane and Newcomb alums--including his mother (who taught at his elementary school for seven years and staged Gilbert and Sullivan puppet shows with the Fourth Graders). He recently dipped a toe into the world of karaoke, and won a prize for singing --- well, let's see, who can guess the name of the prize-winning song?
Thirty-eight years as a college professor have brought great joys and some successes to our mathematician. He has become, they tell him, a good teacher and a good writer. He occasionally brings his students real biscuits (which he bakes himself); he has offered to teach them how to juggle--or to learn from them if they already know how. One of his favorite areas in mathematics is Graph Theory, which is a very effective way to model all sorts of "real life" situations in which there are a bunch of things that may or may not be related to one another. He has given workshops for high school teachers on how to use graph theory in their classrooms. For many years he has worked closely with the Virginia Tech Honors Program, in 1996 one of his advisees was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and in 2005 another of his advisees was awarded a British Marshall Scholarship. In 2003, he gave the Commencement address at Virginia Tech's Fall Commencement Exercises. In 2005, he was appointed an Alumni Distinguished Professor, a tremendous honor which left him -- when he learned of the appointment -- uncharacteristically speechless.
Future plans? Probably more of the same: gardening, traveling, professing, music, the outdoors. He has this vision of giving Commencement addresses at his old high-school or college. Having now had a bit of experience with this sort of thing, he would probably say something about wisdom.
One of Virginia Tech's finest graduates in recent history, the Outstanding Senior in the College of Business a few years back, told him he was very wise. Having thought about what that implied, he'd say this to the students: "You may well wonder what the purpose of an education is. It could be that the purpose is to acquire, not knowledge, but wisdom. Well, that's fine, but how can you tell when that happens? Maybe you begin to acquire wisdom the moment you discover that you are not God."
End of Sermon. Pass the collection plate.
Almost forgot: the nickname. When he was one (1) day old, his Sainted Grandmother looked at him in his crib and said, "Oh, look--he has a face like a rosebud." So they called him Bud. (If he'd been a girl, he'd have probably been named after his Great Aunt and Great-Grandmother Rose.)
This is a true story. I wouldn't lie about my grandmother.