Gary Sr. turns 90 on April 28th, 2025 and he recently reflected back on his journey and “the forks in the road” of life that ultimately led to Gary’s Garden Center! Hear it straight from the keyboard of Gary Sr.:
Do you ever look back and think about when you had a major decision to make and wonder, “Did I make the right decision?” In other words do you sometimes second guess yourself. The big question is how would your life or my life have turned out if we had made a different decision.
My life has turned out pretty well so I am now satisfied with the choices that I made. I may as well be satisfied. I can’t go back and change them.
I label those choices as reaching the fork in the road. Do I go left or right? As I think about those choices I think how different my life would have been had I taken a different choice.
I guess the first choice I had was when I finished high school. I had looked at and considered going to college. To be honest I did not give that serious consideration. I knew I had done all the studying I wanted to do for awhile. I was at that stage in life where I thought I pretty well knew everything so why go to college when there was nothing else to learn.
I had given thought to moving to Richmond or some other city if I could get a job. To do that I had to learn to drive, decide what I wanted to do, come up with money to live on until I got a paycheck and some other things.
Then out of nowhere I was offered a job working at Colonial Stores in Chase City. I could live at home, buy a car and learn to drive plus have a little money left over out of my pay check. I quickly decided to take that job and I think that was a good decision for me.
I worked there until the Fall of 1954. Working at Colonial Stores was a good job for me. I liked the people I worked with. I enjoyed the interaction with the customers. We knew most of our customers and we talked to them when they came in the store.
By Fall of 1954 I was getting an itch to see and find out what else was in the world beyond Chase City. I was considering joining the Navy to get out and see what the world had to offer. If I stayed at Colonial Stores I would advance to the level of manager of a store in the next few years. I might go beyond that or I might be stuck there for the rest of my life.
I was at a fork in the road. Take the sure way and stay with Colonial Stores or take the other fork and join the military and see a little of the world.
While working at Colonial I had made friends with Jimmy. He had worked for Colonial Stores and made the same decision I was looking at. He went in service and spent two years in the army then came home and went back to work for Colonial.
I talked to Jimmy several times about joining the navy. He gave me some of the best advice I have ever received. He told me to go to the draft board and have my name placed at the top of the draft. I would be the next one called and only be in for two years rather than four if I volunteered. THANKFULLY, I listened to Jimmy.
I placed my name at the top of the draft and received my notice to leave for service in November of 1954. I would soon be in the Army. I left Boydton on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I went to Richmond and was sworn in as a soldier, then put on a bus and transported to Fort Jackson, SC.
I think I made the right choice by going in service. I traveled from Richmond, Va. to Fort Jackson, SC, to Camp Gordon, GA, to Fort Monmouth, NJ to Camp Polk, LA back to New Jersey, to Paris France and back to Fort Dix, NJ to be discharged from the army around the first of November 1956. During that time in service I saw a lot of the world and worked with and came into contact with people not only from all parts of the United States but from many parts of the world.
I also want to thank Jimmy one more time for convincing me to move my name up in the draft rather than joining the navy. He was right two years beat four. Thank you Jimmy.
Now I’m back at home living in my same room but with a much broader knowledge of the world. I buy a new car and go back to work at Colonial Stores.
I am getting to another Fork in the road. Another decision is going to have to be made. Do I work at Colonial Stores as a career or do I move on to something else.
In the summer of 1957 I decide to go to Richmond on my day off and check out Richmond Professional Institute a Division of William and Mary. I liked what I saw, I could draw on the GI bill for help in paying tuition and so I enrolled in College. I came home that night ready to start to college in about four weeks.
Believe it or not in those days the only requirement for entrance into college was a high school diploma and money to pay tuition. I had both of those. Also, for the ones reading this RPI is now one big part of VCU, Virginia Commonwealth University. That was another decision that worked out well.
In August of 1958 I married Daisy Jane and that was a good decision. As I write this we are now in our sixty seventh year of marriage so I guess it will last.
I took some extra credit and graduated from college in January 1961. I thought that if I graduated a semester early I would get a jump on the June graduates. That was a serious mistake. As I looked for a job I heard over and over, “come back in June with the other graduates”. It was discouraging to say the least.
I finally received a job offer from the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond. I accepted and went to work there in Spring of 1961 as an Internal Auditor. The FED was a good place to work. The people there were great. The working conditions were excellent. In my job I had to wear either black, brown or blue coat with a solid color tie at all times. The coat could only be removed when I was sitting at my desk. If I went outside the office the coat had to be on.
The Richmond FED had two branches, one in Baltimore and one in Charlotte. We made four trips per year to each branch. Also, we were on loan to the Federal Reserve Auditors for ten days each to assist in the audit of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That was a nice trip once each year.
I could not find anything bad to say about the FED. I was treated well and enjoyed associating with the other employees at the bank. To put it simply it was just not my kind of work. As an Auditor it was our job to check behind people and see they did their job correctly. I have counted money eight hours a day for ten days at a time and watched silver dollars go through a coin counter for four days in a row. Not my kind of excitement.
I felt like I wanted a job where I had lots of people contact and a chance to be creative with my work. I decided to once more see what was available in the job market. After some time searching to see what was available I found a job opening available with F. S. Royster Guano Company. I applied and after several interviews I was offered a sales territory in Virginia with no moving involved. I accepted the job and went to work two weeks before the end of 1965.
Having grown up on a flue cured tobacco farm this was a great job for me. I enjoyed the freedom of scheduling my own day, calling on farm supply stores as well as calling on and working with farmers. It was a great job.
For the ones reading this and wondering, what is guano?Explained simply it is bat crap. It is also loaded with plant rich nutrients. It was found on off shore islands in piles ten to twelve feet deep. It was imported and sold for farmers to spread and grow assorted crops. Mr. Royster imported it, sold it and then grew a large business from that basis.
After some six years I was offered a job in Lynchburg as Retail Outlet Supervisor. I accepted and in 1973 my wife and two children relocated to Lynchburg where we still reside.
I really enjoyed the job of retail outlet supervisor but after two or three years things begin to change drastically in the Lynchburg office. The manager left under difficult circumstances and the Company brought in a manager who was not easy to work for and that is being kind.
His first decision was to sell all the retail outlets even though they were making money. They were making well above the profit margin Royster had set for them. Other things were in turmoil in the office also. The manager had let all the sales people go except for me and one other and we knew our time was short. We both gave notice the same day.
By that time I had sold all the retail outlets but one. I bought that one and gave notice I was leaving at the same time. The other sales person came in later in the same day and handed in his notice.
After buying that outlet from Royster in South Hill, I soon bought one from Southern States in Chase City. Neither of those were good decisions. To put it in simple terms I lost everything. The farm market was not where anyone wanted to be if they could help it in the late 70’s. In four years I lost over a half million dollars. It was harder to get out of the business than it was to get in the business.
I was at another crossroads with big decisions to be made and not a lot of time to think about it. My son was just graduating high school and needing a job. I owed a lot of money and payments were due now.
We, my son and I, took a hundred and fifty dollar pickup, a junk suburban and two old push lawn mowers and started mowing yards full time. That multiplied and turned into one of the best decisions I ever made. The mowing maintenance business thrived.
I got all my bills paid. We even managed to buy better equipment without financing. Ten years after starting that business we started to migrate to operating a retail garden center. The mowing maintenance business was getting so competitive that we thought it was time to make a change.
The garden center did well for us. It produced a nice living for me and my son. At eighty two years old I decided to retire. My son and grandson continue to operate the business. It is still doing well.
As you can see I have arrived at several “big crossroads” during my lifetime where I had to decide which fork to take. Looking back I am satisfied with the choices I made. Even the worse choice “the farm supply business” ended up leading to something better. I will never know if I had made different choices what the outcome would have been. I am pleased with the choices I made and with the way they turned out.
At least that is the way I remember it.
