His appreciation was that he got you to do the work for (basically) nothing. Same with the granddaughter. A reasonable and white family would've paid a fair wage and (or financed it on credit) then dealt with the finances together afterwards.
FYI, damned near everyone is appreciative of free things. [You still have niggers, spics, and kikes who think its owed to them. ]
You have to be young (as your optimism and idealism are still really strong) as someone whose tired over the years of blowhard know-it-alls, would simply get up, smile and leave saying "then you should have no trouble finishing what I started" and not use it as an idle threat.
I'm not saying being full of optimism and ideals aren't great, I kind of envy that you have some left. I'm saying,...spread it out over those who matter most to you. Your wife and kids first. Then parents. If there's anything left...then your extended familiy...and never try and do a project alone. You have incredibly valuable information that should be passed along to your blood. That huge project you ended up doing in the shipping container was nice, but you wasted an opportunity to teach the young'ns (and maybe your uncles) how to do it as well. Maybe peak their interest or at the very least tell them what they should be looking for if they needed to hire contractors for similar jobs. Maybe they had some info that you didn't know too (it's always possible) or could look up to verify or as the contractors you call out later.
Lastly, you have to come to the realization that you can't care enough for them to care. That's not how life or people work. You have to wait until they are willing to either actually help (financially, knowledge, and labor) or it's all just meaningless talk/whining.
You seem like a stand up kind of guy whose not afraid of getting his hands dirty and your heart is in the right place. Just don't burn yourself out (and leave nothing for yourself) like so many before you have.
I only did it for the old man as he kind of reminded me of my Grandpa. In my mind, his entire family was living off him and his wife was the bitch ringleader. What I gathered while working with him is that he was enjoying sitting out on a bench under that tree but finally when the plumbing was costing him over a hundred bucks each time it had to be cleared, he realized it had to be taken out but no one wanted to help.
Later, after we were done my boss brought him by one of those large umbrellas but his wife took it away as she claimed it was against code.
A drowning man needs to have the will to swim to survive. Just breathing isn't enough.
I had a chance to talk to the old man while we worked together. Apparently he had grown up in horrendous child abuse. Stuff I really don't want to type out and I can only marginally relate to. This sort of upbringing primes a person to be victimized as abusive manipulative people are attracted to people like that. They may not search them out in a calculated conscious way but they search them out just the same. Also, the child that's been victimized has a hard time as an adult being able to defend themselves.
I learned how to fight back at 14 which got me in legal problems with juvenile justice sentence but since they couldn't actually pin anything on me that was criminal I just got sent away for a year.
If That was me in that guy's position or any other person who doesn't put up with shit there'd be hell to pay for taking his umbrella. We stopped by and told him they were lying their ass off about it being against city code to have an umbrella in your front yard. Total bullshit.
(post is archived)