I’m so proud of my son Nate. He’s strong and kind and wonderful and smart and aware and funny and talented and more, of course. Here I am with him in his wood shop. He’s come a long way.
Nate snuck out of ACMTC headquarters late at night, leaving with only the clothes he had on. The escape was planned. My son-in-law at the time, Mike (who years earlier with my daughter Rebekah and their two children also quietly left ACMTC late at night) flew to Gallup N.M., rented a four-wheel drive and drove out to Fence Lake with a State Trooper guiding him. The plan was to pick Nate up at 11PM, so at 11 PM Nate walked out to the roadside, and 15 minutes later Mike showed up. The plan worked.
Today Nate’s one of my shining stars. I absolutely love the integrity of this man who suffered so much as a boy, who was denied love by his father, always put down by him, humiliated by him and the Greens, made to feel “not good enough.”
Upon leaving, good men were drawn to him. Today he has two fathers, so to speak, in his life. First there’s Mark, a downtown Sacramento contractor/developer. Mark saw Nate’s talent and good nature and swooped him up, calling him “his boy,” and later made him his business partner. Together they restored historical homes.
Mark (“Gino”)
When Mark more or less retired, Gary, another good-to-the-bone guy, a world renown wood turner, invited Nate to come make furniture with him in his shop—“our shop,” Gary says, and he gave Nate the keys.
A really sweet thing Gary does is that every time a loved one dies, he buys an old machine in his or her memory, restores it to great condition, puts it in his shop, and then every time he uses it he thinks of him or her. Mark, Gary and Nate are all kind and thoughtful men.
