As my grandpa, Ron says, “You gotta be tough if you’re gunna be dumb.” My grandpa is unpredictable, and his stories are crazy. He came up to me one day, in the dead of the summer and says, “Wanna hear a story?” Not knowing quite what was going on, I agree and he tells me the story of how his thumb was crushed in gears as he was working ten years ago almost to the day. Myself, being the young kid I was, didn't get why he told me this. He calmly looks at me and says his famous quote,” You gotta be tough if you gunna be dumb.” That quote has lived with me all my life and is making even more sense now that I’m older, and the impact that my grandpa has left with me is unbelievably life-changing.

The beginning of the story that my grandpa told me started like this. “You know how you get that feeling in your stomach that you could do something, but the other half says ‘No’ to?” I’m sure we have all felt that feeling of questioning ourselves at some point in our lives. My grandpa always wanted to steer me away from anything that could hurt me because I was really small and he could not quite trust me with all that I wanted to do. Later in my 4th-grade year, I wasn’t turning in my homework because I thought I was really cool if I didn’t. Every night I went home and told my parents that I didn't have any homework and they believed me, but my grandpa, on the other hand, did not. I went over to his house on the second to last weekend of my fourth-grade year and he continued his story to me.

He continues with,” I’ve done stupid things in my life and I regret it.” When my grandpa comes back to a story, you know that he means it. He likes to make sure that I know what I do wrong in life. He likes to keep me on the right track. He continues,” You kids like to say the phrase ‘YOLO’ a lot. But think about it. You do only live once.” My grandpa is very impactful in my life due to the fact that he grew up not knowing right from wrong and he tries to keep that from happening to me. “School is important, treating your friends right is important, and respecting your parents is important.”  These are things that he likes to tell me because he almost wants to mold me into the right person. But the story doesn’t stop there.

  The ending way that my grandpa impacts my life is always at the end of his stories. I can’t describe how many times that my grandpa Ron has said that he is “Only trying to help” and “You should heed the warning”. He is always there for me when I need him and he always says that even if I am in another state, he would come pick me up if I needed it and bring me back to home. He also says that “This is a private domain where I live so whatever happens here, stays here.” He is always very open and forgiving when it comes to messing up and he will help me get back up off the ground.

My grandpa impacts my life the most when he tells me stories with quotes in them that will stick with me my entire life. He impacts me on showing how to be helpful and kind but still tell people to do it themselves. “You gotta be tough if your gunna be dumb.” As he says quite frequently. I learned a lot from him over my years and he’s helped me through tough times in my life. And I must admit, I’m pretty tough for my age.