Standing Firm: One Man's Journey from Poverty to Stability

A self-described ragweed, Darl Reynolds never should have amounted to anything. As the son of a coal miner and the fifth of seven children, he grew up during the Great Depression in the impoverished community of Monday, Ohio, a tiny "worked out" coal-mining town that collectively owned just one phone. Luxuries like indoor plumbing or a decent pair of tennis shoes were as foreign to him as the state's bustling cities just a few dozen miles away. The son of a mother who suffered from manic depression and a father who spent most of his free time on a bar stool, he was left to fend for himself.

Like the ubiquitous ragweed, which thrives on neglect, growing beside highways and in dusty back alleys, Darl somehow overcame his impoverished childhood and slowly discovered an inner resolve that served him his entire life. From the stifling bowels of the U.S.S. Brown, where he was crowned "oil king" during World War II, to the sweltering cabins of the steam locomotives that hauled freight for the Pennsylvania Railroad, Darl not only persevered; he flourished. He converted a high school education into a pair of college degrees at Ohio University and eventually went into business for himself as the owner and operator of several state-of-the-art nursing homes in Ohio.

But even a ragweed faces hard times. In the span of a few short years, Darl weathered a divorce, lost his only son to cancer, and, although innocent of wrongdoing, was indicted and convicted of Medicaid fraud. During that bleak stretch, he was reminded once again that in this life change is the only thing constant. As someone who had written his master's degree thesis on the diesel locomotive engine and its effects on the railroad operating crafts, Darl knew well what it meant to reinvent himself. Now, in the twilight of his long life, he has slowed down long enough to recount the adventures of one Ohio-bred ragweed.