These days I’m thinking a lot about my grandparents, Guy and Gladys Adams. As we kind of walk in their footsteps, taking the same path and journey, I’m thinking about their own RV dealership beginnings. I only knew the final years, the good years, the years when they were thriving, successful and award-winning. Everyone in the industry knew the name PECO Campers.
But what about the beginning? The hard years? When they didn’t know what the outcome would be. My granddad genuinely loved camping and went to buy a pop up to make memories with his three boys. And the factory convinced him to buy three and try to sell them, at a time in Atlanta when no one else was really doing that. I wonder quite frequently what my grandmother said, lol.
I'm so thankful for them. I'm thankful for my father who gave up his own dreams to support his dad and work with family. Anything we have is because of them. Our dreams, our vision, our experience, our history... it's all because of them. I wish I could say, "thank you." But thank you now to my dad, to my mom. Thank you for the sacrifices and for the journey. Thank you for letting me grow up in your shop so now my kids can grow up in their dad's shop. Thank you for letting my first job be with you, my way to pay for college and my first car. Thank you for encouraging us in this endeavor, in the hard beginnings. Thank you for sitting across breakfast with me this week, answering my questions about what it was like in the beginning.
As for my grandparents, I so wish both of them could be here now to see our journey. I wish I could talk to my granddad and my grandmother one more time. And one day, I will...
But here we go on our own journey, pursuing a dream my grandparents began all those years ago. I wonder where we will end up, and I can only hope we are still in business fifty years from now like they were... passing a dream down to our kids. Or at the very least just having a blast working together, camping together and making a thousand memories.
