Cathy Spaulding: Okie from Muskogee: Duck hunting, being a Shriner keeps Brown going

Apr. 22—When Bedouin Shriners rode their motorcycles in Muskogee's recent Azalea Festival Parade, James Brown rode right along with them.

"It lightened my spirits," he said. "It was good to see Muskogee come out and support us. They let us be in the front of the parade so we can go back and help with the Creole festival."

The festival enabled Brown to do things he loves best — ride motorcycles and serve in the Shrine. But he has many other interests, particularly duck hunting.

Brown said he grew up on a Harley and has had several motorcycles since then.

"Our family would take motorcycle trips to Florida, Branson," he said. "My mother had her own motorcycle. In the 70s, that wasn't very common."

He joined Bedouin Shrine in 2006 after meeting with Tommy Fullerton.

"It just sounded like a big family to me," he said. "That's how I got my start, being around a guy who I thought was a good guy, and he was proud to be a Shriner."

Brown said he, too is proud to be a Shriner.

"Every day," he said. "It's helping children, and it's a community. I've met Shriners from all over the world. And I've met Shrine children."

Brown said he got into duck hunting when a friend gave him a shotgun.

"And that was the cheapest part," he said. "Because then I started getting specialty boats and a truck. Then I had to get a dog. Now I've got to get a more expensive boat, and a bigger truck and a nicer shotgun."

He said he wakes up as early as 2 a.m. and has gone as far as Tennessee to hunt ducks.

"Duck meat is the most expensive meat you can have when you count the time and miles," he said.

Understanding what's important in life

James Brown says he couldn't count the thousands of miles he's logged taking patients to Shriners Children's hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, and the burn center in Galveston, Texas.

"I've met burned children who had lost all the digits off their hands," he said. "A clown at the end of the day of making people laugh, he becomes Joe Public again. Our Shrine patients can't take off their burns. They can't put their hands back on. That teaches us to have compassion for those children."

He said he children are happy to go to the doctor.

"The Shreveport hospitals are amazing places, the Galveston hospital is an amazing place," he said. "You don't see kids crying and fighting to stay in the van and not go in. It's an amazing feeling knowing you're a part of that."

And the children know their doctors and nurses by name, he said.

"If you could ever go there and see involvement of the doctors and the nursing staff," he said. "They have pictures on the wall, in some of those rooms like where they make the prosthetics. Those rooms are covered with pictures of those kids with those nurses, doing crafts. Walls and walls. And it changes. Christmas rolls around, it changes. Spring rolls around, it changes. I've never been to a doctor's office where there are so many smiles, with such terrible things that have happened to these children."

Having fun

riding a Harley

Brown has ridden his Harley Davidson Ultra Classic motorcycles over all sorts of surfaces with the Shriners.

He said the Bedouin motorcycle unit has won two championships at the Shrine International Convention. They've competed in Arizona and Louisiana.

"We take our competition very seriously," he said. "We would all start and end together. There are certain maneuvers you have to perform — head to head, figure 8s. In circle inside of a circle, we would have five motorcycles circling in the middle, then five motorcycles circling outside in the opposite direction."

He said one thing to remember about competition is "don't tump over."

"And don't put your feet down, ever," he said. "Once you start, you're penalized if your feet touch the ground, or you tump over or if you're out of sync. Just think of synchronized swimming, only you're on 100-pound motorcycles."

Unit members often practice in the Muskogee Civic Center parking lot.

"We've done it inside of buildings," he said. "In Florida, the competition was inside of a convention center. It was pretty wild. It was on a polished concrete floor. It was slick."

Sharing stories

about duck hunting

Brown can tell stories about his duck hunting misadventures. In fact, he does it quite often on Facebook, where he shares short stories about his group, BS Hunting service.

"And BS stands for BS," Brown said. "I write a short story after every hunt and I put it on Facebook — the good, the bad, everything.

Just whatever we did that day, mainly the mishaps.

"I kind of mock professional hunters because they always show they get in the truck and they go to the spot and they find the animal, they track the animal, they take the animal, and everything is just Bang bang bang. You don't see 'on the way there, we had a blowout. The dog fell out of the boat. There;s so many hiccups while we're hunting."

One misadventure came while hunting around Spaniard Creek last winter with a young man named Ron Venters.

"Last winter, we were scoping out a duck spot, we're going through the ice to check for these ducks," Brown said. "We get about a foot from the bank, and Ron steps out and the boat is icing over. Left foot goes into the water, right foot slips. He's in the water, and it's about 15 degrees. He came out of the water so fast, he didn't get any water inside his coat."

HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?

"My father and mother moved here in 1977 for his work. And I've been here ever since."

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT MUSKOGEE?

"It's a small community. My Freemason family and Shrine family are a big part of the reason I stay here. And my wife has a job at the VA hospital and I get my medical care at the VA."

WHAT WOULD MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?

"I wish we had more industry jobs. If we could get these dilapidated houses either remodeled or removed."

WHAT PERSON IN MUSKOGEE DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?

"I worked for a man named Terry Burrow, who owned BCI Barn Builders. He helped me when I was young to get my life on a straight path. He would make sure ladies who worked for him could get a college degree, if they wanted to get a master's he would pay for it. He was really into the Boy Scouts. I'll never forget him. When he passed, a man who was really big for me was Tommy Fullerton. He was the one who got me into the Freemasons, and he has passed.

WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE THING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN MUSKOGEE?

"My childhood was amazing. I grew up behind the skating rink. I could ride my bicycle across town and back. We were safe then. My parents were good parents. I never, ever wanted for anything with my mom and dad. We were the nuclear family."

WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

"Gardening. Volunteering with Bedouin Shrine."

HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?

"It's my hometown, and I love to tell people about it."