His mother planted beans because the family couldn’t afford enough food.
For years, Brent helped her work in the dirt.
At school, other children mocked his clothes and the simple bean meals he brought for lunch.
They called him “Bean Boy.”
He had promised himself that when he grew up, he would never be poor again.
He would never have dirt beneath his fingernails.
He would never have to look at another vegetable garden.
“So I built that house,” he said, gesturing toward the mansion. “Everything I ever wanted. But every morning, I looked over here and saw the life I’d spent decades trying to forget.”
His voice broke.
“And all this time, my own mother was getting food from the garden I wanted destroyed.”
Nobody spoke.
Then my father slowly lowered himself onto the gravel beside him.
“Brent, let me tell you something.”
Dad explained that in 1982, the paper mill had laid off hundreds of workers, including him.
