In my life I have met, directly or indirectly, men who have influenced and inspired me and whose words and advice have made me the man I am today. Of course I will meet other men through out my life time, but at this very moment one of the men that have had a great impact is my grandfather.
There are a lot of things I can say about him and so little space to put it all in. I'll start by doing a short biography, covering the basics. He was born on Febuary 2, 1910 in the city of Morelia in the Mexican state of Michoacan. As you can see he is almost 100 years, and as far as I can remember reaching this age has been one of his goals. He's seen every achivment of mankind. From the apperance of the electric light in his town to the DVD. He isn't a man who got stuck in his time, he embraced every technological achivment and wasn't adverse to rock and roll. He appreciates the Beatles and recognizes the musical revolution they brought. He's gone from the radio to silent movies to talking movies to television; from phonographs to CD's. He was a direct and indirect witness to the mayor events in history. He's a lawyer by profession and a bit of a historian by passion. He actually wrote several books, only one published, and various articles for the newspapers. His focous, of course, is Mexican history and particularly has an interest in the Independence period and actually wrote a biography of Miguel Hidalgo, the so called "Father of the Independence".
Every time he told me a story of his life I was fascinated by it, thinking that he lived an extraordinary life, although I'm sure he never felt that way.
He is also a man with wonderful qualities: he has a great sense of humor and very good conversation, patience, and loves reading, thus giving him that excelent conversation. He loves music, a quality and an ability he got from his father and played the piano, the guitar and the banjo. He was also good with cars and could find out what was wrong, giving any mechanic a run for their money. He was also a bit of an architect, as he designed the house he lived in for around 30 years and could actully tell if something was wrong with a construction. He acompnied my mom when she was looking for a new house as his opnion was invaluble.
Finally, I'm going to share the things I got from him that have influenced me in being the man that I am today. His taste in music, as I remember listening with him his old records, mostly jazz. I also got a bit of his musical talent, though that has a lot more to do with my great grandfather. My patience and sense of humor also come from him. I also share his name as my second name is Roberto and apparently I also look a bit like him, specially when he was young.
That's my grandfather, Roberto Carrillo, to me the most extraordinary man I've ever met.
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