Some stories are just too funny and unforgettable to not re-tell. So here goes.
Preface: My father is a character. I have never met anyone like him. He is sooooo exaggerated. He would brush his teeth like 12 times a day, and used like 46 sheets of paper towel to clean the counter-top. There was never a dull moment with my dad around… but occasionally, (ok, more than occasionally) he would do something so extreme that it had to be noted in the Martinez history book. You’ll see why after reading.

Our house growing up had a large yard which had a canal behind our fence. Behind the canal were lots of pine trees. When we moved to this house, the area around us was very under-developed. In fact, one day there was an alligator in our neighbor’s yard- but that’s another story. My dad having grown up in a rural area in Cuba, kept chickens and roosters in our yard. He had a coup but also had free roaming chickens around.

One night at about 3:00 a.m. my dad comes into my room and wakes me up, he then runs to my brother’s room and wakes him up. I was about 8 and my brother was about 5. He is running around with a shot gun saying that a gorilla had invaded the chicken coup. I remember him clearly yelling ” I shot a gorilla…. it was taller than me”. “You have to see this… I shot a gorilla who was trying to eat my chickens”. I guess my brother and I never quite woke from our slumber enough to witness this spectacle but first thing the next morning, I ran to wake my brother up. We got dressed, put on our shoes and ran to the back yard to see the slain beast. We walked slowly towards the coup just in case he wasn’t quite dead. As we approached the monster, we saw, to our dismay, it was just a raccoon- and a little one at that. Can you believe it? I certainly cannot. A raccoon? Unbelievable!