We’ve known mister Brown ever since we were 5 years old.
- When our mom moved to the area, she was a single mom working 2 jobs just to keep a roof over our heads.
This meant we were home alone most of the time because she was busy. Mom had trained us to be self-reliant from an early age, so we knew what to do after school. We got to know mister Brown as a lovely neighbor, and he became like an unpaid babysitter. I recall when he started looking after us when mom was having issues with our HVAC system. It was almost summer, and we could feel the days getting hotter, so mom tried to turn on the HVAC unit to cool our home. But, the unit wouldn’t turn on. Mom knew something was wrong, so she went to mister Brown to ask if he knew any reputable HVAC repair folks in the area. Mister Brown told mom that he was an HVAC technician before he retired with 4 decades of experience under his belt. It turns out he knew all there was to do with HVAC repairs and came over to fix the unit in our home. Mister Brown went to his back shed to pick up his repair kit and came over as soon as mom told him there was an issue. She was hesitant because mom didn’t want to bug the older man with problems. But, he explained there was no need to pay someone for work that he could do easily and for free. We started hanging out in his yard from that day, where he lived, fixing old HVAC units and donating them.