Humans of Downey - Garth (2/2)

"I am like my father in work ethic. My dad taught me that if you want something you need to work for it. He told me flat out, 'I'm not going to give it to you, you'll have to earn it.' Based on that teaching is how I looked at things.

"My dad was a roofer. He was hard-working. That's what I grew up with. That's what I did early on, was work hard at tearing roofs off. I remember driving one day and I saw a real nice car. He said, 'Hey, you like that car? Would you like to have it?' I said, 'Yeah, dad.' He said, 'You work hard enough, you can buy that car.' I thought that's very good because that's life—you want it, then work hard for it. So, it made me appreciate things when I worked hard to get them.

"It's why I loved my 1970 Camaro that I bought. Even though it wasn't the newest one, I loved it because it was mine and I bought it myself. I appreciated it more and took care of it better. It wasn't the shiniest car on the lot, but it was mine.

"My mom, on the other side, said, 'If you don't vote, you can't complain about anything.' Her mindset was to participate and back people that you thought were going to do the right things for you. Especially in politics. I didn't consider her a politician. She was just a grandmother with kids that wanted a safe neighborhood, and she saw things that were going in a direction that she thought were detrimental to having safe neighborhoods, e.g. a lack of street lights. So, she got a petition signed to get street lights installed. You can't just sit in your house and complain about things. You have to get up and do something about the problems. So, my mom taught me to get involved in the solutions to the problems I saw."
~ Garth