Edgar Ruiz Jr.

I realized that I was completely wrong about my father.

My dad wasn't cheap.

He was just struggling.

He lived most of his life living paycheck to paycheck.

I looked it up.

Minimum wage back in 92 was like $5.25.

If he was lucky to be making that in the factory.

So those $13.99 that he spent on them ugly sneakers must have been like half a day's work for the dude.

And I was embarrassed.

And I was humbled.

But it was that trip at 19 that I finally laid the foundation for a relationship that I always wanted with my dad.

And the more I got to know about him, the more I got to know about myself.

Ironically, several weeks prior to that trip, I wrote this psychology paper on nature versus nurture.

And when I wrote that paper, I was on the side of nurture because I thought I was a product of my mama.

a product of the streets of New York.

But then I got to know my dad, and I realized I had a lot more of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico coursing through my veins.

And it was scary.

I wasn't raised with this guy, but there we were, liking the same types of music and movies, personal philosophies that we shared, little things from the way we signed our names the same to even the type of girls we liked.

All of them.

We liked them all.