My Dad was born on May 29th,  1925.   As far back as I can recall,  I  always thought of my Dad as an Amazing Man.  His entire focus in life was to look after, care for and provide for his Family.  He is the most Giving, and Unselfish Man I have ever known.  I will always remember many of the things my Dad shared with me, but one thing in particular will forever remain imprinted in my mind.  In the first few years of being in America,  we lived in Poverty.  Rich in Love and Family, but poor financially.  A real treat for us was when we would buy a chicken for dinner.  As Mexican custom,  I recall that Mom would cook the entire chicken.  By this I mean the Entire Chicken!  - Neck,  Back, Head,  the Legs  with the feet and claws still part of the leg!  When it was time to sit down and eat, My Dad would always reach for the Chicken Back and the Chicken Neck.   It wasn’t until my mid 30’s  that  I found out why my Dad always chose those two pieces of Chicken.  He said he always HATED those chicken parts!   I asked him that if he hated them, why he always chose those two pieces.  His response was that  he didn’t  ‘choose’ those pieces.  He would ‘take’  those pieces because he wanted his children to always have the best part of the chicken!  

 

    As small as this little memory may seem,  it is exactly how my Dad lived his Life.   Total unselfishness.  Everything for his Family.  Never giving any thought to his own wants and needs.  His reward for his immeasurable love for his family, is a Wife and Four Kids  who Respect, Love and Admire the Man that he is.  I am now in my mid 50’s,  and I admit that the best times of my life are when I pay a visit to my Mom & Dad’s home.      

 

    Back in the mid 80’s  at the start of my Dad’s retirement,  he found the time to put in writing  some very Informative,  Engaging,  Educational,  and most Entertaining  experiences of his Life.  He began Mailing me these very loooong   letters full of interesting little stories of different parts of his life.   I enjoyed them immensely,  so I encouraged my Dad to continue writing to me.  I told him that I would like to put his letters in the form of a Book. More than that, I wanted others to get a sense of what a Special Man  my Dad is.    The ‘glitch’  was  that his writings were all in Spanish!   I would first have to translate them into English and make whatever grammatical corrections  would need to be made.   It was very time consuming,  but it was during this process when I saw that my Dad was writing to me in the very same way he would speak to me!   In other words, while “reading” his letters,  I could actually “Hear”  his thick Spanish accent along with his mispronunciations and grammatically incorrect way of saying things.   When I came to this very important realization,  I started over again.  this time,  purposely leaving any and all misspelled words,  and grammatical errors.  this way, any reader  would be able to get a real sense and flavor of just who my Dad is.    My Dad wrote everything contained in this Book.   All I did was merely Organize his efforts,  and facilitated putting it all in this Format.  I suppose it is my own personal way of telling my dad how much I love and admire him.