It’s not easy to change someone’s default settings, especially when they have relatives constantly dragging them down, but I’d quickly learned that the by-product of staying in one place was getting involved with people on a deeper level, whether you wanted to or not. As a boss, I couldn’t help being attached to those kids, hoping to make a difference. Some of the ones who’d straightened themselves out were like younger brothers and sisters to me now. We’d kept in touch even after they’d moved on to bigger and better things.
