I was raised by my grandparents after my Dad ran off and my mom checked out permanently.
This was a weird upbringing, because they were both 50 years older than I was, and had no way of relating to me. They had raised kids before, but based on my dad’s behavior they didn’t do the best job, did they? With no other recourse, I had to move down south to stay with them. They had just moved into a retirement community in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was a very nice, tranquil place to live, but I was the only teenager in the whole area! All of our neighbors were like my grandparents, and moved to Cocoa to retire. On the plus side, I made a lot of extra money doing chores for the old folks of Cocoa Beach and managed to save up a tidy sum of money. I rarely got a chance to spend that money because I couldn’t drive yet, and there wasn’t a lot for a kid my age to do in Cocoa. At least the beaches were nice. That was where I met Buck, an older guy who had retired after 40 years as an HVAC contractor. He was enjoying his retirement in Cocoa, but still itched to do HVAC repair work from time to time. Buck hired me to be his HVAC assistant, and over the course of the next two years he gave me an education on the industry. It’s because of Buck, and my days in Cocoa Beach, that I am currently a successful HVAC contractor.