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05/24/2017 12:00 AMWhen the 2017 Memorial Day Parade takes place on Monday, May 29, 74-year-old Clinton resident and Navy veteran Robert Brown will be waving to the crowd from a gold colored 1968 Mustang. Bob has ridden in the car for the last three years, but 2017 will be the last year Bob will ride in the parade.
Bob was recently diagnosed with an aggressive terminal cancer, and given a prognosis of a few months to live. In recognition of his service to his country and as a testament to the number of people he has befriended in the community since becoming a Clinton resident in 1979, Bob’s longtime friend and the person who will drive Bob in the parade, Jeff Morse, is hoping parade goers will give Bob a special ovation as a tribute to his life.
“The hell of it is I miss the whole parade,” Bob says about riding in the parade.
He would rather not be the center of attention, saying, “I don’t feel myself that important.”
Morse disagrees.
“Everyone finds Bob special except for Bob,” Morse says with a laugh.
While he may not like being the center of attention himself, Bob is quick to offer his passionate feelings on Memorial Day, the purpose of which he says is “to honor all those who have gone before,” adding, “This country means so much to me.”
Bob’s love of America may well be in his blood. His family was able to trace its roots in America back to among the first families that settled Manhattan.
“I wish they left me half an acre,” Bob says with a smile.
Bob, who grew up in Bridgeport, joined the Navy in 1960 after a friend from Milford told him he had just enlisted. Bob decided to join his friend in enlisting, explain his decision a with laugh as, “What the hell?”
Bob was an active duty member of the Navy for four years, working with electrical equipment like alarm systems and electronic communications on submarines in Charlestown, South Carolina. His time in the Navy took him to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which he called “the hottest place on Earth.”
When he was growing up, Bob was an avid racing fan and used to go to a track in Danbury on Saturdays to watch races. Even though his father ever let him get one because of how dangerous they are, Bob calls midget racers his “true love.”
“Racing is my joy,” Bob says.
In fact, that love of cars led Bob to have a chance celebrity encounter when he was a teenager. Before he joined the Navy, Bob worked at a gas station in Bridgeport, and one afternoon a man pulled up in a Volkswagen and needed help with his car battery. Bob helped the man, who insisted on shaking his hand even though Bob protested that his hands were dirty from working on the car.
When he went back into the station after the man drove away, Bob’s boss asked him, “Do you know who that is?” The man was none other than Igor Sikorsky, the famous aviation pioneer.
“He had two cars, a Lincoln and a Volkswagen,” Bob jokes.
When Bob’s four years of active duty and two years of inactive duty ended, he considered his options. He had a cousin who was going to electricians’ school in New Haven, so Bob decided to go, too. The school led to a position as a tester for a microwave company. When the company moved to Massachusetts, Bob moved, too, and stayed with the company for five years.
Eventually, a friend and coworker started a similar company in New Hampshire called Technical Research & Manufacturing, and recruited Bob to come work with him.
“It was the best time of my life,” Bob says of his time in New Hampshire.
The company did engineering work, and eventually grew its reputation to the point that it received contracts to build circuit boards for F-18 and F-34 fighter jets.
Life wasn’t always easy for Bob. In 2003 his first wife, Judith, passed away. Bob says he began drinking heavily after Judith’s passing and says he was “going nuts.” Bob credits the V.A. with helping get his life back on track.
“The V.A. in West Haven treated me great,” Bob says.
To keep busy, Bob found a new hobby: boats. Bob bought a boat that he said people used to tell him was “the prettiest boat in Clinton.”
Bob worked with his three children Bob, Jeff, and Charlie to renovate the boat. Unfortunately, the boat sank in Clinton harbor during Hurricane Sandy.
“All that was sticking out of the water was two masts,” Bob says.
While losing the boat was a blow, Bob’s life was picking up in other areas.
Five years after the loss of his first wife, Bob married Beatrice, a woman he met through the nanny of his friend Morse. Beatrice lived in Queens, New York, so Bob drove down to meet her one day.
“If only my car had broken down,” Bob jokes.
Bob says she’s “quite a gal” and “the best thing to ever happen to me.” While he does add the caveat that it isn’t as good as his mother’s, Bob says his wife “is learning to make good lasagna.”