Unedited copy Lou Brierley wrote in 2005

It's February 2005, and I've got a story to tell

Have you never wondered about life’s mysteries? How we got where we are and the route taken? My life seems to be full of such mysteries. For instance. It’s a mystery to me how a stay after school, for talking in class, with my junior high school teacher led me to selecting to go to East High. Better art department she said. More opportunities, she said.

And what of the mystery of sports. Never could hit a baseball, or field it for that matter. I was too busy watching the clouds pass overhead. I received an athletic letter in basketball at Lincoln Jr. High but I think more out of pity than talent. And how to explain the first week at East High when Max Reed assured me of a high school letter if I gave up trying out for the JV basketball team, which I wouldn’t make anyway, and join the swim team. It seems my fifty yard freestyle timed the first day of swimming period impressed him. And how the angels must have been on my shoulder when offered scholarships to colleges since I was in the commercial division, but somehow managed the fifteen units.

Two years at Boston University and then I was in the Air Force. Hoping to get into special services or some design area, I was told my “talents” may lie in other areas. That is simply, where they needed to fill a hole in some job slot. As I stood in line for one final test a Sergeant came down the line asking if anyone wanted to become a teacher. I jumped at the chance and after eight weeks of school I was teaching academics on to the basic trainees.

When I was transferred to Fargo, N.D., where I met my first wife, I thought that was the end of the world, but as it turned out I ended up with a day job doing design work for a local TV station while being in Charge of Quarters in the detachment nights. Where else, but in America.

In September 1956 I was out of the Air Force, married with a son. I’m in the Dean’s office at the Minneapolis School of Art four days before the semester started showing my few pieces designed at the television station. I was accepted. Now don’t tell me the planets don’t line up for this sort of thing. It happens too often.

With graduation coming at the art school four of us applied to the Graduate Design Program at Yale. Four of us qualified but Yale would accept only two from any one school. A graphic student party several months earlier where beer flowed like a stream helped getting into Yale. It seems by the end of the school year two of the guys decided not to attend. They had pregnant wives which could be traced back to that party. Somehow me and Yale just don’t come up in the same sentence. But there we were.

From Yale, now with two kids, we went to Chicago, Buffalo, and Topeka, Kansas where I headed up the design department. I had been all set to go to another company when a friend called and said you have to come and at least look us over. I did and didn’t even flip a coin, I accepted their offer on the spot. The day after the night Carol and I were married she, her two daughters 5 and 7, and I drove to the wheat belt. A couple of years later the company changed the job description and I was out on the streets. Stuck in Topeka without a job is not very cheery. But once again chance took hold.

Fate seemed to take a hand when a good friend of mine at corporate headquarters was reading a professional magazines and found an advertisement from the University of South Carolina’s College of Journalism for someone to start up their graphic design area. I sent in my resume and was told by phone I was one of forty-three. Next call, one of twelve. The last call I was one of two and I told them I’d drive from Topeka to Columbia for an interview and then they could have a choice between the two of us. That night at dinner after my presentation I had the job. Now what are the chances of someone happening on that ad? Evan more difficult to understand is how none of the people who looked at my portfolio knew if I was any good or not having never worked with a designer before.

One thing led to another. Life’s pieces just seemed to fall into place. A radio show for six years, writing sports articles 20 years, and teaching for 22. If that isn’t a life full of mystery I don’t know what is. Some will say I just took the opportunities offered to me. But think of it. So many opportunities, so mysterious.

But the biggest mystery of all occurred on February 3, this year. My daughter Wendy called. “She’s alive!” I didn’t understand. “What?” I asked. Wendy said over the phone, “She’s alive. Your mother is alive.” I slumped back onto the couch. I felt numb, and emotions were overtaking me that I never felt before.

I was adopted by Leonard and Mildred Brierley when I was two and the final papers were signed just before I turned four. From Louis Frazier, I became Lewis Brierley in the stroke of a pen. Wendy had been doing research on my biological parents based on my birth certificate. Not especially for me but for our youngest daughter, Pollyanna, who was over heard one evening saying, “Well I don’t care. As soon as he dies I going to find out.” Wendy took that as a challenge and had been working the computer till it smoked and was on the phone talking to people who directed her to other people.

I learned of it in January, this year, when Carol and I were down to Myrtle Beach where Wendy and her family live, and Carol was taking quilting classes. Carol had helped some with Wendy but it was Wendy doing all the work. They hesitated telling me for fear I would think they were meddling in my affairs, but I assured them I thought the information they had gathered was “interesting.” Through files on the net Wendy had found I had two sisters, both dead, and where my biological mother had lived and my sisters old addresses as well. Wendy said I could give all the information she had to Pollyanna on her birthday, April 6. I insisted that she give it to her because there was too much love in the research for me to take credit in handing it over. We argued, but we have a long time before April 6 to decide.

Then on February 3rd my daughter Wendy called. “She’s alive. Your mother is alive.” And so the mysteries of mysteries occur. A seventy-four year old man becomes a son to a 95 year old woman. On top of that news Wendy somehow found a local news article of older women helping 4-H club members with their quilting and believe it or not, there’s Esther in the middle of the group of ladies. And Esther’s birthday? April 6. I’m waiting for the director to yell, “Cut. That’s a print.“ and Esther and I walk off the set.

We’ve made contact through a counselor at the nursing home and she told me my mother said, “Now I know why I lived so long.” The letter and photos I sent should arrive there tomorrow, Wednesday, and Carol and I will make plans to visit her perhaps as early as next week. We told Pollyanna about finding my biological mom. After all, Esther is 95 and if something happened to her before Pollyanna knew we’d never lose the guilt.

The family talked about this great gift Wendy has given us all. We’ve shed tears over it, sometimes not quite knowing why or how they flowed to the surface. After several days we are still stunned by those words of Wendy’s, “She’s alive. Your mother is alive.”