Becoming The Browns - Part 2

In my last post on this topic you learned a little bit about me and my journey before meeting Mr. Brown. Now let me give you a bit of background on Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In high school he met a lovely girl who became his girlfriend. I'll call her the girl. After graduating from high school Mr. Brown moved to the small town of Alma to attend Alma College. Mr. Brown and the girl dated through his senior year of high school, all 4 years of college and awhile after graduation. It is my impression that most people assumed that the girl was "the one". It seemed a foregone conclusion that they would marry, move back to their hometown (or close to it) and live happily ever after.

No one counted on the fact that a 21 year old guy sometimes grows restless. Mr. Brown's restlessness took him to Europe a few times - for travel and study. And in doing so, he made a few poor choices regarding his relationship with the girl. I should also mention that the girl was a year older than Mr. Brown and so his senior year of college he had time to make new friends with other girls while the girl was off growing her career. Again, poor choices were made.

Finally, the time came for Mr. Brown to think about his life after college. There were two obvious options for people at small colleges in Michigan - move to Detroit (the suburbs of) or Chicago. As a small town boy who'd never lived more than a few hours from home, he wasn't really interested in Detroit. The way he tells it, he foresaw that if he took a job in Detroit that things with the girl would proceed as planned. He could see his entire life laid out before him - the wife and kids, the small town, being related to a good 30% of the others in town (the girl was from a large extended family), never really venturing outside the sphere he'd grown up with.

And as 21 year old guys are apt to do... he ran from that picture of domesticity. He interviewed at as many companies as he could in Chicago.

And this is where "our" story starts.