From as long as remember I always sat on my papa’s shoulders yelling at him to smell my feet, and he would say back to me this made up story of how my nana would beat him, Because he forgot to make coffee. As a little kid I would get down and race to my nana. Retelling the story, however she would laugh and tell me it’s not true. I would then go back to my papa and tell him Nana said, “It’s not true.”  He would say, “I know I was just stretching the truth.” So I argued back “So you were lying.” Again he would say, “No I was stretching the truth.” That’s how my Papa and I would bond. Every day when I was little he would pick me up from preschool and we would go through that. I loved it so much, I cried when he said I was getting too big to do it. Ever since then I have looked up to him, my Papa is the person that has influenced my life.

My Papa has inspired me to be creative. He isn’t creative in the arts and crafts kind of away but he does collect, the biggest thing it his movies. He started collecting the movies when he was in early twenties or earlier until his last day. He recorded them from TV and put them on tapes. He bought them and traded them from movie stores and flea markets. Overall his ending number of movies was 10,000 and then some. He fit his whole collection in a small alcove connecting to his living room. It might sound like it should be a huge room, but it was just a small room in a small house. But that wasn’t his only collection; he also collected Coca Cola named items. His collection went anywhere from glasses to bottles, cans, cookie jars and even little bears. He also did different types of problem solving. For example there was these books filled with crosswords and he could finish one in the matter of days. He also did Sudoku and many other types of puzzles for fun, and he was good at them to. He also joined clubs, he had joined a swimming group called Scooby doo. Which he always went to until it closed or even later. He was also a twenty-five year member or TOPS. Which is a group to stay healthy. He inspired me by how many creative alternatives I can do. But how creative he was can cause trouble too but not in the way where he got in trouble with the law.

He was the troublemaker everybody knew. I guess trouble maker isn’t the right word to fully describe him, he was the one who would do his own thing. Whenever he was home he would always eat the same thing because that’s what he knew. For breakfast he would eat a bowl of cereal. For lunch he would eat whatever leftovers we had. Then he would eat a bowl of ice cream. Being a man of constancy he would always eat the same kind of ice cream, cookies and cream, with a bit of milk in it. So when I would go over there I would ask him to make a bowl and he would say yes because he couldn’t refuse a cute little face like mine, also he could always say yes to ice cream. Then I would get in trouble for eating ice cream before dinner, so I always saw him as a troublemaker in my head. As I said he stretches the truth, so any story he would tell it was most likely true in most parts but in some parts he just stretched the truth. When I retold the story I would be told it was wrong by my nana. Then he would always say he is just stretching the truth. Not only did my Papa stretch the truth, he also came up with some pranks. An example was at Christmas when we were all over at my Grandparent’s house he gave me and my brother the idea of putting shaving cream in my stepdads hand and tickle him. So we go over where my step dad was sleeping and started to do it. Although my Papa laughed so hard and loud he woke my stepdad up. The prank was his idea but it didn’t work so well. When my brother and I would explain it to my mom it was my papa’s idea he always said no it wasn’t. Even though my mom always knew it was my Papa’s idea. Therefore he was too stubborn to admit it.

My papa was the most stubborn person I have ever met. If there is something he didn’t want to do, he would not do it. One of the things grandparents do is tell their grandkids stories, like how to do stuff and what’s right and what’s wrong. Well my papa did tell me stories but it was the very few he remembered, so he told them over and over again. If I told him, he had already told that story he would refuse to stop because he thought he was telling it for the first time. He didn’t have Alzheimer’s disease or anything he was just stubborn enough he wouldn’t listen to anybody. He became that way after his brain surgery in 1993, he had two aneurysms that made him forgot how to do everything. When he told stories he made sure no one else would forget them. On February eighth, 2013 my papa had passed away. After a week of struggle in the hospital from falling. He had major kidney failure, and heart problems but he refused to let go. He wanted to stay here in pain for the rest of his life. So we had to make the decision for him because if it was his choice he would have been a human vegetable. Not being able to actually live his life without pain. The way he struggled to sacrifice his happiness for his family, just stuck in my head.

That’s why I look up after him because even though he can be stubborn, a troublemaker and be creative he will always be my hero. For all the times I stuck my feet in my face he always loved bonding with the family to his very last day. Even though I wasn’t there to say goodbye I knew he was there struggling to stay there for his family, unable to let go. My Papa is one of the few gentlemen that have all of the characteristics. I am so proud of what he did in his life. He didn't become a billionaire but he became my family's role model. This is why he has influenced my life the most.