After World War II, my grandfather came back to Oklahoma from his Navy service in the Pacific. He married and found work at the Pillsbury grain elevator as a truck loader, loading bags of wheat onto the company’s transport trucks at the base of the elevator. It was not a glamorous job, but his hard work paid the bills and put food on the table for his growing family. 

Then came the 1960s, when Pillsbury further modernized the elevator. My grandfather was laid off. Without skills or education, he struggled to find employment. His life took a downward spiral of anxiety, alienation, and depression. He became a shell of a man. 

My father decided to do something about this. Together he and his father would build a greenhouse. . . .