Why is there not many "had" in this? Isn't he referring to something that happened in the past?

You don't always have to use "had" to refer to something in the past. The rest of the verbs are in the past tense, which conveys that this is in the past. "Had" can emphasize something even further in the past, like how they say he "had lost his job." In this story that takes place in the past, something else happened previously.

This is all written in the simple past tense. “Had” isn’t used in simple past.

This is in simple past tense. "Had [verb]" is past perfect, which you would use if something had happened before the point in time the story discusses. But everything in the story happens at that specific point in the past.

Great question! You are asking why the past perfective is not used in this case. The past perfective, when recounting actions in the past, is used for setting the scene, bringing forth information that is pertinent to the action. For example, you might have said "My father had been a parole officer" or "It had been a particularly hot day." This information isn't part of the action, but is important to the understanding of what's to come. Once the scene is set, however, when the actions of the story is listed, simple past is used.

The story starts at one point in the past, when the break-in occurred. In the third sentence, there is a reference to something that occurred even earlier. The man lost his job before the break-in, so at the time the story is talking about, that event was in the past. Using 'had' shows this.

You don’t need to constantly use “had” because the verbs themselves are in the past tense, “caught”, “made”, “brought”, “talked”, “changed”, etc. In “had lost”, this refers to a specific event in time, so “had” is needed here.

There is no need to overuse past perfect. It's only necessary for stating a sequence of events - he *had* lost his job, prior to this story. Using past simple avoids excessive verbiage, which makes the story more exciting and dynamic; instead of being a fusty historical account, you can picture it unfolding. *TL;DR:* Always choose the easier option. Don't overthink it.

Draw a timeline, with past to the left, and present to the right. Mark an X for distinct points in time. \--------------X------------------X------------x---x---------|----> . . . . . . . . lost job . . . . . broke into house The second X (closer to the present, to the right) is the day when: caught a guy made him sit brought him coffee talked to him .... all happened, on that day. Also in the past, he ended up helping him, and he changed his life. I marked those with little x's. Those events are presented like a list. "I woke up, I got dressed, I took a shower, I ate breakfast". They happened at different times, yes, but they are just items listed that happened in the past. Here, the first X, on the left, is "lost his job". Why is it in *past perfect*, with "had"? Because you are showing relation between two distinct pasts, and how they're connected. He *had* lost his job, and so he *tried* to break into a house. You might be thinking, "but isn't 'changed his life' and 'talked to him, got him job' both connected? Yep, they are. You could write the sentence, "My dad changed a guy's life after he had tried to break into our house." There isn't one single possible way to talk about the past. It depends what you are trying to express and how you arrange it.

One thing that will continue to make this tricky is that people with different accents or dialects will use “had” more or less frequently than others. Generally speaking, people from the UK will use “had” more often than Americans. For example, a British person will be more likely to say “I can’t believe you’ve done this”, whereas an American will be more likely to say “I can’t believe you did this.”

Narration especially events set in a chronological order heavily use past simple tense. Past perfect tense is used to refer to something before. The "had" in "had lost his job" means this action happened before he was desperate. He lost his job first then he was desperate. <- this is a sentence in a chronological order. No "had". He was desperate and had lost his job. <- in this situation he lost his job then got desperate. We call this "had" past perfect tense.

So, "when I was 12," establishes when this story occurs. It's happening in the past, so the verbs are mostly in past tense: caught, made, brought, talked, ended, changed... All of these actions occurred in the same time frame established by "when I was 12," *except* for when the would-be robber lost his job. This is the "had" verb you're looking for. He *had lost* his job, because that event was in the past *relative to the past we'd already established* ("when I was 12"). I'm writing this. (right now) I wrote this. (5 minutes ago) I had written this (10 minutes ago), when I wrote that (5 minutes ago). The past of the past is "had done." The past is only "done."

When you tell a story about the past (“When I was 12”), you normally use the simple past tense. The story uses the past progressive once to say that an action interrupted something else that was going on: “my dad **caught** a guy \[who was\] **trying to break** into our house,” It also uses the past perfect once to say that one thing had already happened by that point in the story; “the guy \[...\] **had lost** his job.”

you're not reporting what happened to use had. you're telling a story here so you use the simple past to narrate the main actions; and the continuous past to set the scene.