Once upon a time, in an ordinary southern midwestern town, there lived a teenager with a rebellious spirit who was being raised by a single mom. The last of 7 children, GaREE was a problem child, a high-school dropout, and a heavy drinker. His family hoped that he might someday land a factory job and then “straiten up and fly right.” The public school system had given up on him; but destiny had something extraordinary in store. In his teenage years, GaREE roamed the streets, perhaps subconsciously seeking the father he never knew and hoping for any stimuli to relieve teenage boredom and angst. He skipped school, hung around a local bar with older alcoholics, sought adrenaline-fueled adventures, and clashed with authority. His path seemed destined for a hardscrabble working-class existence at best, or a life of crime at worst. But GaREE felt something inside. He did not know what to call it, though many years later he would learn that psychologists call it the “Growth Mindset”. He read a quote: “The largest room in the world is the room for improvement.” Man, he thought, do I ever need a lot of improving. About that time GaREE became friends with a guy who was a few years older. This guy, Gene, had been to college for a couple of years. Perhaps Gene saw GaREE’s rebellious spirit as a cry to break out of the mold that society had cast him in. At any rate, Gene knew that education was a key to transformation, and he himself planned to go back to college and finish. It would be great to have GaREE tag along. But there was a problem. GaREE had at most just one semester of high school credits.