Before landing this job, Garrett had been homeless runaway at 15 years old.
His parents had died in a traffic accident when he was 12. When they died he was turned over to foster care. He hated it there. A lot of the kids were mean and there was a particular group of kids that really concentrated every free minute they had terrorizing Garrett. This group of boys was verbally and physically abusive. The biggest of the gang, poetically named Bubba, would get right in front of Garrett's face and yell:
"Stupid man!!! Remember your name should be Stupid!!! You are so Stupid!! You'd better run like a little girl or i'm going to kill you now you little punk! Stupid little girl!!!" Than his little gang would start chanting "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid" over and over, form a circle around Garrett so he couldn't get away and
start pushing and punching him until the guards would run over and break up the group.
Garrett was tired of this place and the group of wanna-be thugs. Since Bubba was here for stabbing his parents, Garrett took the threats seriously - so he packed up all his belongings and left. He'd rather live on the streets than put up with this.
Finding a job had been a challenge. To be 15 and trying to explain why he was homeless made people apprehensive about hiring him. Luckily he found a job at a dairy. The owner was Mr. Brown. He had seen the desperation in Garrett's eyes and heard the desperation in his voice. So he decided to give him a chance.
Mr. Brown also had a small 1 bedroom worker's quarters on the property that he told Garrett he could stay at. Garrett had never met someone so kind. This made Garrett want to work harder.
Mr. Brown and Garrett became great friends. They worked hard at the dairy during the day and spent evenings on the porch after dinner. Mr. Brown would tell stories. Garrett enjoyed the stories, they were full of history and different places with different cultures. There was so much in the world Garrett wanted to see.
Mr. Brown was in his 50's completely alone. Everyone in his family had passed on - by different causes such as accidents and such. Also, a blood infection that seemed to run in many members of the family had claimed the life of over half. Mr. Brown had been lucky to avoid this fate so far.
Since Mr. Brown was alone, he had no issue helping this kid, Garrett, get ahead of a life that had seemed, to this date, been unreasonable to him. Mr. Brown helped Garrett finish school and paid for him to start college. Garrett continued to work and eventually ran the dairy after Mr. Brown had a heart attack. He was 90 when he died, and when he did - Garrett was by his
side. His last words to Garrett were that he loved him like a son, an that he
was very proud. Garrett's success in life was a victory to his soul and he would
die knowing that Garrett would be okay.