Flying through the highs and lows

Deepa Bharath

“Rooster” has been Ila Brown’s nickname forever.

Ila loved roosters. She collected them with a frenzy. She put them

up in her front yard and the living room, in the bedroom, under the

tables, in the kitchen and even the bathroom.

She had more than 500 of them. And she continued to collect them.

Even the week before she died, she bought a giant rooster from T. J.

Maxx when she went shopping with Nancy Thompson, a longtime friend.

Ila fell in love with it the second Nancy, somewhat hesitantly,

pointed her finger at the 3-foot tall rooster. Ila bought it, but her

face fell when the gigantic statue wouldn’t fit into Nancy’s sports

car. So the women had the store hold the rooster for them until the

next day when they came back in Ila’s Trailblazer and got it. The

rooster when straight to Rooster’s living room.

Of course, the old rooster took up a lot of room. But Ila didn’t

care. Her face lighted up as she set it up in her living room.

Ila went through a few highs and a lot of lows in life. But that

never changed her smile, which was a permanent part of her pleasant

countenance.

For 53 years, she worked as a telephone operator. People

identified her Texan twang as soon as she picked up the phone (she

could really put it on when she wanted to). She worked with Hughes

Aircraft in Newport Beach and then continued for the next 23 years at

the Parker Hannifin Corp. in Irvine.

She made lasting friendships at work, especially at Hughes where

she found her girlfriends for life -- Nancy and Delores Brower.

Even at work, Ila dressed to the hilt, especially on holidays.

She was born on the Fourth of July. On that holiday or any other

holiday, her front yard would be filled with decorations. The

American flag always fluttered outside her home, but on the Fourth,

there were scores of flags on her yard.

Ila would show up to work as a pumpkin on Halloween Day, a

firecracker on the Fourth or a bunny around Easter time. She also

accessorized with holiday-theme earrings and necklaces. And her

co-workers absolutely loved it because it brightened up their day.

It so happened that red, white and blue were her favorite colors.

All the cars she owned were red. On Mondays, she wore blue without

fail (got the idea from Elvis’ “Blue Monday”).

She and Nancy loved to play around with the notes their friend

Delores would write to herself.

After taking a break from work, Delores would return to her desk

to find suspicious items added to her grocery list or when she saw a

note to be sure to go home. When Ila ended a call she didn’t like,

she’d make arm movements as if she were swatting flies.

Ila had a sense of humor, which stood by her as she went through

three divorces, the deaths of two daughters and the suicide of an

ex-husband.

She wrote about herself for a company event: “I’m Ila Brown and

I’ve been a call girl. Oh! I mean a telephone operator for Parker

Hannifin for 23 years.” Sometimes she got tired of her job and in

such times she often said: “Take this job and shove it.” But she

never gave up and took too much pride in who she was and what she did

to just quit and walk away. She worked at Parker Hannifin until her

death.

Ila loved her grandson, Jesse, whom she raised full-time for 12

years. Jesse, now 15, is in Quito, Ecuador, doing mission work. It

was hard for Ila to let him go away to Ecuador for two years, but she

was selfless. She didn’t want him to come back even if something

happened to her. And Jesse respected his grandmother’s words. He

didn’t even let her death come between him and his mission.

Ila was also close to her family, especially her three sisters.

She would spend Sunday mornings on the phone with them, sitting on

her patio. They always seemed to find things to talk about.

Shopping was like therapy to Ila. She saved all her old clothes,

even the polyester from the ‘70s. She owned, at one point, more than

200 pairs of shoes.

Ila loved California and the weather. But it was almost like she

left behind a piece of herself in Texas. Ila will be buried near her

mother’s grave in Corpus Christi.

By the way, the giant rooster Ila lovingly brought home from T. J.

Maxx has found a new living room to inhabit -- Nancy’s Laguna Beach

home, where it will constantly remind Nancy about the Rooster she

once knew.