English 9 Celebration Essay

English 9 Celebration Essay                                         Seth
   

My grandpa, Virgil Schoolmeester, is a hard-working, diligent man. He is gentle and calm, but can get firm when he needs to. He and Grandma spoil the whole family on special holidays like Christmas.  He is a major role model in my life.

My grandpa has always been there for me; when I’m glad and when I’m sad. He always has a smile on his face; always greeting me with a hug and a smile. You can go talk with him about anything and he will help you in any way shape or form that he can; whether it’s about spiritual matters, or lifetime struggles and hardships.

He is a very busy person, but yet will take the time to talk with you and spend time with you. He is incredibly patient, but can get firm when he really needs to.  He is a very strong Christian and is the spiritual leader in our whole family. He is a very hard worker and has been farming his whole life. He is a very skilled farmer and knows everything about farming. He never went to college, but he is probably the one in the family with the most knowledge of us all. He is also very tough. He has gone through cancer and didn’t complain about the pain of radiation or therapy once. He also has diabetes, which I can imagine is a pain to have, but he never lets it get him down. He is always extremely thankful, even when the crops aren’t doing well from lack of rain or any other problems.

I remember him when I was young, he always let me ride in the combine during harvesting, and I would bring a sandwich and a pop out in a cooler for him and a second one for me. After a while we would both take a break and eat our snacks. He would also take me on fourwheeler and tractor rides just for fun. He took notice on how much I loved to drive his full size fourwheeler at an extremely young age, so for one Christmas, he bought a little youth fourwheeler just for me pretty much. I still ride that little fourhweeler at times just for fun, doing wheelies and a bunch of other silly things I probably shouldn’t do with it. I also remember staying over at their house for up to a week at a time during summer vacation and going along to the parts store with him.

We went on fourwheeler rides together with myself  driving the little fourwheeler with him on the big fourwheeler into the pasture where we would spray thistles. His pasture is huge and used to have cows in it and the whole family would ride in the back of pickups and on fourwheelers out to the pasture and walk around and wade in the creek and talk. I also loved going fishing with him and still do to this day, even though I was little and didn’t understand that throwing rocks into the pond would scare the fish away from where they were fishing! He still had enough patience to fish probably a good half hour longer to catch a single fish with me throwing rocks around than with calm waters. Back then we didn’t have a boat, so when I got a little bigger, this was one of my main times I really got to fish, because there aren’t very many good fishing spots in Iowa.
    Every Christmas my grandma and grandpa spoils the family. They spend tons of money buying several presents for each child and adult. Once and awhile they will spoil each family with a game console or handheld games. One year they bought each family a Nintendo Wii when it first came out. I found out early when I discovered a Wii in my parent’s closet and found out they were helping her buy them off Amazon and other places before Christmas so my parents could bring them over to their house to quickly wrap them up. Two years later, they bought each child a Nintendo DS. This was very fun to chat with 10 other cousins of mine on the DS’s.

Overall, he has made a major positive impact on my life and has shown his love for me and the rest of the family over the many amazing years that I am getting to spend time with him. I can’t wait until harvest season this year, so I can go sit in the combine, bring a sandwich and pop out for him, and talk for a couple hours.